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Bee Branch Creek (Iowa)

The Bee Branch Creek is a creek in Dubuque, Iowa, that flows into the Mississippi River. The city has changed it multiple times over the years to make floods smaller. The newest change involves making the river more like a normal one. This comes after it being in a sewer.[1][2]

Bee Branch Creek (Iowa)
MouthMississippi River (16th Street Basin)

Etymology

No one knows how the Bee Branch got its name. Some think it could have been a name for one of its tributaries. It got the current name by 1863[3] though the name lived before then.[4] Earlier, the Bee Branch had the name Couler Creek, after the Couler Valley.[3] Couler Creek was used even after 1863, being used in some geology books.[5][6]

History

In the 1800s, the creek had many floods.[3][7] On flood along the creek were thought to be especially bad by news stations like the Quad-City Times.[8] An early plan to fix flooding that the Bee Branch did was to move its flow north into the Little Maquoketa River.[9]

The Bee Branch Restoration Project is not the first try at making floods smaller. It was planned to put the old creek underground through a storm sewer in the early 1900s.[10] The sewer was finished by 1905. The Dubuque Enterprise, an old newspaper company, thought it was good.[3][11]

The years 1999, 2002, 2004, 2008, 2010, and 2011 saw very damaging floods totaling in costs to $70 million. The first storm prompted the city to research an engineering project on the 100-year floods. It was found that the sewers were not big enough for large storms. Detention basins, ponds that collect water, were added in the area. Also, the sewer became a river to hold more water.[3][12]

 
This is the last parts of the sewer.

Life in the creek

The creek is will likely have a healthy ecosystem.[10] In the Lower Bee Branch, 14 native species of fish and the common carp has been found in it. Many of these fish are fish that are hunted like the bluegill, largemouth bass, northern pike, and others. The Iowa Department of Natural Resources thought the creek had good levels of life. This was also interesting because of how new it is.[13]

Bee Branch Creek (Iowa) Media

  • Image depicting the ground along W 17th St. after a flood in 1876

  • Entrance to the remaining sections of the sewer.

  • 22nd Street Bridge, an example of the style of bridge crossing the creek.

References

  1. ↑ "Bee Branch Creek Restoration | Dubuque, IA - Official Website". www.cityofdubuque.org. Retrieved 2022-09-04.
  2. ↑ "Dubuque celebrates milestone for $230 million flood prevention project". KWWL. Retrieved 2022-09-04.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 "Bee Branch Creek History | Dubuque, IA - Official Website". www.cityofdubuque.org. Retrieved 2022-09-04.
  4. ↑ "Du Buque Visitor". Du Buque Visitor – Archived by Newspapers.com: 2. 1836-07-20. https://www.newspapers.com/image/843090371/. Retrieved 2022-12-01. 
  5. ↑ Heyl, Allen; Agnew, Allan; Lyons, Erwin; Behre, Charles (1959). The Geology of the Upper Mississippi Valley Zinc-Lead District (PDF). United States Government Printing Office. p. 23.
  6. ↑ Witzke, Brian; Bettis, Arthur; Anderson, Raymond; Heathcote, Richard (1997-04-27). Geology in the Dubuque Area (PDF) (Guidebook 63 ed.). Iowa City, Iowa: Iowa Department of Natural Resources. p. 2. Retrieved 2022-12-26.
  7. ↑ "Dubuque, Iowa, Tuesday Morning, October 1, 1878". Dubuque Herald: 4. 1878-10-01. https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=uh8FjILnQOkC&dat=18781001&printsec=frontpage&hl=en. Retrieved 2022-11-12. 
  8. ↑ "The Rise Continues and the Damage Begins". Quad-City Times: 1. 1892-06-03. https://www-newspapers-com.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/image/299462692/?terms=Couler%20creek&match=1. Retrieved 2023-07-05. 
  9. ↑ "Dubuque, Iowa, Wednesday Morning, July 11, 1877". Dubuque Herald - Archived by Google News: 4. 1877-07-11. https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=uh8FjILnQOkC&dat=18770711&printsec=frontpage&hl=en. Retrieved 2022-11-12. 
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 "Urban Drainage Channel Restoration – Daylighting the Bee Branch Creek — Dubuque, IA". Strand Associates, Inc. Retrieved 2022-09-05.
  11. ↑ "Dubuque Enterprise (Dubuque [Iowa]) 1901-1905". Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. Retrieved 2022-09-10.
  12. ↑ Journal, Ted Hesson, National (2015-11-27). "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2022-09-05.
  13. ↑ "Upper Bee Branch Creek Restoration | Projects Origin Design". origindesign.com. Retrieved 2022-09-05.
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