~~* The Singing Falls Stream Restoration Project *~~
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~~* USGS stream station at Elk Creek near Drew, Oregon *~~
The station is located approximately 3 miles from Singing Falls and Joe Hall Creek. The Joe Hall drainage is a subwatershed of the Elk Creek Watershed which in turn is a subwatershed of the South Umpqua River Watershed. The gage readings and statistics are a very good reflection of what is happening in the stream at Singing Falls.
The Elk Creek Watershed covers close to 54 square miles of drainage. It has several tributaries and countless miner seasonal streams. It was the perennial home of a permanent village of the Umpqua Indians. It is estimated that up to three thousand tribal members lived here at any given time. Elk Creek and its tributaries were a major component of the tribes sustenance. Up until the 1950, before major post world war II old growth deforestation practices, all of the stream flowed year around. Government regulation in the mid 1960's required woody debris to be removed from all streams. This along with the concurrent elimination of the beaver population through trapping has caused many of the streams to dry up during the natural annual summer drought season.
Recently funding has been made available to install an on-line live stream gage at the station. I hope to have a direct link to the site here when it comes on line. This will become an excellent tool to monitor the effects on the Elk Creek watershed restoration that began with the Joe Hall restoration project in 2005.
Station Information
Douglas County, OregonHydrologic Unit Code 17100302 Latitude 42°53'25“, Longitude 122°55'00“ NAD27
Drainage area 54.40 square miles
Gage datum 1,279.25 feet above sea level NGVD29
watershed index
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