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<title>Balch Creek</title>
<authors>Wikipedia</authors>
<publisher>wikipedia.org</publisher>
<publishedplace>network</publishedplace>
<publishedyear>2010</publishedyear>
<edition></edition>
<category>Featured articles</category>
<section id="46500" fatherid="0" title="" lv="" priority="-1" level="1">
Balch Creek is a  tributary of the Willamette River in the U.S. state of Oregon. Beginning at the crest of the Tualatin Mountains (West Hills), the creek flows generally east down a canyon along Northwest Cornell Road in unincorporated Multnomah County and through the Macleay Park section of Forest Park, a large municipal park in Portland. At the lower end of the park, the stream enters a pipe and remains underground until reaching the river. Danford Balch, after whom the creek is named, settled a land claim along the creek in the mid-19th century. After murdering his son-in-law, he became the first person legally hanged in Oregon.
Basalt, mostly covered by silt in the uplands and sediment in the lowlands, underlies the Balch Creek watershed. The upper part of the watershed includes private residential land, the Audubon Society of Portland nature sanctuary, and part of Forest Park. Mixed conifer forest of Coast Douglas-fir, western redcedar, and western hemlock with a well-developed understory of shrubs and flowering plants is the natural vegetation. Sixty-two species of mammals and more than 112 species of birds use Forest Park.Houle, pp. 36-49 A small population of cutthroat trout resides in the stream, which in 2005 was the only major water body in Portland that met state standards for bacteria, temperature, and dissolved oxygen.
Although nature reserves cover much of the upper and middle parts of the watershed, industrial sites dominate the lower part. Historic Guild's Lake occupied part of the lower watershed through the 19th century, and in 1905 city officials held the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition there on an artificial island. After the exposition, developers converted the lake and its surrounds to industrial use, and in 2001 the Portland City Council declared the site to be an "industrial sanctuary".

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<section id="46501" fatherid="0" title="Course" lv="" priority="-2" level="1">
<section id="46502" fatherid="46501" title="" lv="" priority="-1" level="2">
Balch Creek begins in the Forest Park neighborhood in unincorporated Multnomah County near the intersection of Northwest Skyline Boulevard and Northwest Thompson Road at the crest of the West Hills. It flows generally east about  to its confluence with the Willamette River, a major tributary of the Columbia River. The creek drops from  above sea level at its source to  at its mouth, a total of . Most of this occurs in the first . In the hills, the stream gradient (slope) generally ranges from 15 to 30 percent interspersed with sections of less than 15 percent along the middle reaches.
From its source, the creek runs east on private property near Forest Park, a large municipal park in Portland, before turning briefly south about  from the mouth. Soon thereafter, the stream receives an unnamed tributary on the  bank and turns southeast on private property along Northwest Cornell Road. It enters the city and the Audubon Society of Portland simultaneously about  from the mouth, receives two more unnamed tributaries on the , and flows northeast, entering the part of Forest Park known as Macleay Park. A Forest Park map can be viewed at The Art of Geography.
For about  the creek parallels Wildwood Trail, the main hiking trail in Forest Park, until reaching a former public restroom known as the Stone House. From here Balch Creek runs beside the Lower Macleay Trail, another hiking trail, for about .Houle, 94-97 Near Northwest Thurman Street, roughly  from the mouth, the creek flows through a trash-catching rack into an  diameter storm sewer. City workers first diverted the creek into a pipe in the early 20th century. The water empties into the Willamette River in the city's Northwest Industrial neighborhood at Outfall 17. About  below this outfall, the Willamette enters the Columbia River.

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<section id="46503" fatherid="46501" title="Discharge" lv="" priority="-2" level="2">
The Bureau of Environmental Services (BES) of the city of Portland monitored the flow of Balch Creek from June 1996 through September 2002 at a site, Node ABB857, where the stream leaves the surface and enters a storm sewer in Macleay Park. BES reported an average summer flow of , a maximum of , and a minimum of 0. The average flow in winter was , with a maximum of  and a minimum of 0.
Measurements taken during an individual spring, from mid-May to mid-July 2002, showed the flow starting at about  and dwindling to 0 by early June. The flow through June depended partly on the weather; the highest flow, , occurred after a rain. Measurements taken during an individual autumn, late August to late December 2001, were close to zero until November. The largest flows during that season, , occurred after many days of rain.

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</section>
<section id="46504" fatherid="0" title="Geology" lv="" priority="-3" level="1">
Solidified lava from Grande Ronde members of the Columbia River Basalt Group underlies the Balch Creek watershed. About 16 million years ago during the Middle Miocene, the Columbia River ran through a lowland south of its modern channel. Eruptions from linear vents in eastern Oregon and Washington flowed down this channel through what later became the Willamette Valley. These flows, some of which reached the Pacific Ocean, occurred between 16.5 and 15.6 million years ago and covered almost . Geologists have identified several basalt flows in the West Hills, where they underlie the steepest slopes of Forest Park and form the columned rocks visible in parts of Balch Creek Canyon. Bishop, pp.141-48 Wind-deposited silts, unstable when wet, later covered most of the lava. Stream bank instability and siltation are common, and the threat of landslides has discouraged urban development in the hills.
About 15,000 years ago, cataclysmic ice age events known as the Missoula Floods or Bretz Floods originating in the Clark Fork region of northern Idaho inundated the Columbia River basin many times. These floods deposited huge amounts of debris and sediment and created new floodplains in the Willamette Valley. From then until the 19th century, the lower Balch Creek watershed consisted of swampy marshlands and shallow semi-permanent lakes such as historic Guild's Lake. The final  or so of historic Balch Creek flowed across this floodplain.

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<section id="46505" fatherid="0" title="History" lv="" priority="-4" level="1">
<section id="46506" fatherid="46505" title="Names" lv="" priority="-1" level="2">
Multnomah County is named for Native Americans who lived in the area before settlement by European Americans in the 19th century. Members of the Multnomah tribe of the Chinookan people lived on Sauvie Island in the Willamette River and on the mainland across from the island, downstream from the mouth of Balch Creek. However, since much of the area near the lower creek was swampy, it was not favored by the Multnomah. By the 1830s, diseases carried by white explorers and traders reduced the native population by up to 90 percent in the lower Columbia basin.
Historic Guild's Lake, in the lower Balch Creek watershed near the Willamette River, was named for Peter Guild (pronounced guile), one of the first European American settlers in the area. In 1847, he acquired nearly  of the watershed through a donation land claim. Although variations in the spelling of Guild's Lake occur in historic newspapers, maps, and other documents, Guild's Lake has been the preferred form since the beginning of the 20th century.
The creek is named for Danford Balch, who settled a  donation land claim upstream of the Guild property in 1850. After a man from a neighboring family eloped with a Balch daughter, Balch killed him with a shotgun. On October 17, 1859, at a public gallows he became the first person to be hanged by the State of Oregon.
Macleay Park takes its name from Donald Macleay, a Portland merchant and real-estate developer who  acquired what had been the Balch property. In 1897, he donated the land for a park on condition that the city provide transport to the park for hospital patients and build paths wide enough for wheelchairs.

</section>
<section id="46507" fatherid="46505" title="Early water supply" lv="" priority="2" level="2">
Balch Creek was one of Portland's sources of drinking water in the mid-19th century. Stephen Coffin and Finice Caruthers, two early Portland entrepreneurs, established the first public water supply for the city in 1857 by piping water from Caruthers Creek in southwest Portland through round fir logs with  holes bored in them. In 1862, the Portland Water Company added water from Balch Creek to the system. The company's infrastructure included a timber dam on Balch Creek and a  cast iron pipe, which continued to supply water to Portland until the 1880s. The Bull Run River in the Cascade Range to the east of the city began supplying most of Portland's drinking water in 1895.
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<section id="46508" fatherid="46505" title="Industry" lv="" priority="3" level="2">
One of the first industries in the Guild's Lake area was a sawmill built in the 1880s. Although large parts of the land remained undeveloped until the early 20th century, lumber mills, grain storage structures, railroads, and docks appeared along the waterfront. The Guild's Lake Rail Yard, built by the Northern Pacific Railway in the 1880s, became an important switching yard for trains.
In 1905, the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition, held on an artificial island in Guild's Lake, helped spur growth in the area. After the exposition ended, developers filled the lake and its surrounds  with soil sluiced from parts of the Balch Creek watershed in the West Hills above the floodplain or dredged from the Willamette River. Civic leaders promoted the Guild's Lake area as a good place for industry, and by the mid-1920s the lake was gone. The USGS places historic Guild's Lake at coordinates  at an elevation of  above sea level between what later became Northwest Saint Helens Road and Northwest Yeon Street, slightly west of Northwest 35th Avenue in Portland.Modern location derived by using Google Earth and GNIS coordinates.
Between the 1890s and the 1930s, channel-deepening in the Willamette River improved the city's status as a deep-water seaport, as did completion in 1914 of a port terminal. Guild's Lake, close to highways as well as marine and rail terminals, became the most important industrial area in Portland. After World War II, chemical and petroleum processing and storage, metals manufacturing, and other large industries expanded in the area. In 2001, the Portland City Council adopted the Guild's Lake Industrial Sanctuary Plan aimed at protecting the area's "long-term economic viability as an industrial district."

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</section>
<section id="46509" fatherid="0" title="Watershed" lv="" priority="5" level="1">
<section id="46510" fatherid="46509" title="" lv="" priority="-1" level="2">
Rainfall in the watershed from 1977 to 2002 averaged about  per year. About  of the total fell from November through April, and about  fell from May through October. Minor flooding has occurred near the trash rack and caused occasional basement flooding along nearby streets.An inclined rack allows debris to "ride up the trash rack as water levels rise." Workers stand on the rack and remove debris with a rake.
</section>
<section id="46511" fatherid="46509" title="Flora" lv="" priority="-2" level="2">
Above the floodplain, much of the habitat in the watershed consists of mixed conifer forest. Trees and shrubs, including stands of red alder and cottonwood trees, cover about 88 percent of the middle reaches. Near the headwaters, the forests  consist mainly of mixed conifers and hardwoods with a few older Douglas-firs. Common species include big leaf maple, willow, western hemlock, red alder, western red cedar, and Douglas-fir. Most of this forest is relatively young. In Forest Park, old growth forest, undisturbed for 250 years or more, exists mainly in isolated patches.Houle, p. 22 The largest tree in the park is a Douglas-fir near the Stone House. It is  high, and the trunk is  in circumference.
Forest Park and other areas of the watershed have an understory of well-developed shrubs including  ferns, Oregon-grape, vine maple, salal, red huckleberry,Houle, p. 18 Fendler's waterleaf, Indian plum, salmonberry, and stinging nettle.  Among the prominent wildflowers are wild ginger, Hooker's fairy bells, vanilla leaf, evergreen violet, and trillium. Rare or uncommon species include old conifers, Western wahoo shrubs, and ornamental dawn redwoods. Invasive species are English ivy, European holly, clematis, morning glory, and Himalayan blackberry.

</section>
<section id="46512" fatherid="46509" title="Fauna" lv="" priority="-3" level="2">
Nearby tracts of habitat strongly affect the wildlife in the Balch Creek watershed. This is especially true of Forest Park, which extends into other watersheds to the northwest. Birds and animals from these watersheds and from the Tualatin River valley, the Coast Range, the Willamette River, Sauvie Island, the Columbia River, and the Vancouver, Washington, lowlands, move in and out of the park with relative ease. Sixty-two mammal species, including the northern flying squirrel, black-tailed deer, creeping vole, bobcat, coyote, Mazama pocket gopher, little brown bat, Roosevelt elk, and Pacific jumping mouse use Forest Park. Blue Grouse, Great Horned Owl, Hairy Woodpecker, Bewick's Wren, Orange-crowned Warbler, Osprey, and Hermit Thrush are among the 112 species of birds that frequent the area. Amphibian species seen at the Audubon Society pond include rough-skinned newts, Pacific tree frogs, and salamanders.
Pressure from habitat loss, pollution, hunting, and urban development has reduced or eliminated the large predators such as wolves, bears, and wild cats and has led to increased numbers of small predators such as weasels and raccoons. Roads through the watershed severely hamper the movement of large animals.  Invasive plant species such as English ivy have made the habitat simpler and less supportive of native insects and the salamanders and other amphibians that feed on them. Citizen groups such as the No Ivy League and Friends of Forest Park have engaged in projects to remove ivy, to plant native species, and to widen and protect riparian zones.

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<section id="46513" fatherid="0" title="See also" lv="" priority="-6" level="1">
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<section id="46514" fatherid="0" title="Notes and references" lv="" priority="-7" level="1">
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<section id="46515" fatherid="0" title="Works cited" lv="" priority="-8" level="1">
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<section id="46516" fatherid="0" title="External links" lv="" priority="-9" level="1">
Category:Geography of Portland, Oregon
Category:Works Progress Administration in Oregon
Category:Tributaries of the Willamette River

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