North Fork Kentucky River

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Template:Use American English Script error: No such module "Infobox".Template:Template otherScript error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". North Fork Kentucky River is a river in Kentucky in the United States.Template:Sfn It is a fork of the Kentucky River that it joins just upstream of Beattyville.Template:Sfn It is nearly Script error: No such module "convert". long with an average slope of Script error: No such module "convert".,Template:Sfn and an overall basin size (at Jackson) of Script error: No such module "convert".Template:Sfn

Basin and hydrology

The river rises at Payne Gap in Letcher County, in the Appalachian plateaus, flowing initially westward past Whitesburg in the Kanawha section (of the Cumberland Plateau) north of Pine Mountain.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn Several of its early tributaries flow off the north side of Pine Mountain into it, one of the principal ones being Cowan Creek.Template:Sfn The basin size within Letcher County is Script error: No such module "convert"..Template:Sfn

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The discharge rate at Hazard varies seasonally, being high in the winter and spring and low in the summer and autumn.Template:Sfn This is brought about by higher rainfall during the first half of the calendar year, and regularly causes floods in the spring.Template:Sfn

Water quality, and connections to mining

Half of one percent of the area of the North Fork Kentucky River basin has been disturbed by mining.Template:Sfn As a result of these land disturbances, the annual sediment yield for the North Fork basin is roughly 15 times the yield over the entire Kentucky River basin, at an estimated Script error: No such module "convert"..Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Three quarters of the sediment load is deposited between Jackson and Heidelberg, estimated by the USGS and KGS to be mostly just upstream of the latter.Template:Sfn

Because of the mining, the North Fork is also one of the three major sources of dissolved solids in the Kentucky River system.Template:Sfn It is the origin of one third of the dissolved sulphates found in the Kentucky River,Template:Sfn and the location of the highest concentrations of iron (more than 4 times the concentration over the whole Kentucky River basin),Template:Sfn and manganese.Template:Sfn The measured increases in dissolved solids over the years 1976–1986, between 3% and 10% per year, matched the increase in coal production during those same years.Template:Sfn

Calcium and magnesium cations, one of the causes of water hardness, are elevated in the North Fork because of surface mining disturbances of calcium and magnesium bearing rock,Template:Sfn the overall Kentucky River system being classified as hard to very hard, with exceptions in tributaries that are unaffected by Eastern Kentucky Coalfield mining.Template:Sfn The North Fork is responsible for one third of the Kentucky River's dissolved magnesium and one tenth of its dissolved calcium.Template:Sfn

Not enough data are available to explain the elevated aluminium concentrations in the North Fork, as few samples have been taken with highly fluctuating measurements,Template:Sfn but the elevated barium concentrations correlate with the suspended sediment measurements and are thus attributed to underclay disturbances caused by mining,Template:Sfn as do its elevated copper concentrations which are thus likewise attributed.Template:Sfn The elevated concentrations of manganese are considered to be of natural origin, because although they are high in the mined parts of the North Fork basin, they are also high in other parts of the Kentucky River basin where there is no mining and no correlation with suspended sediment measurements.Template:Sfn

Floods

Script error: No such module "labelled list hatnote". The Kentucky River basin, including North Fork and its tributaries such as Troublesome, suffered a major flood in January and February 1957, although that did not exceed the highest on record for Troublesome itself at that point, which had been the flood of February 1939.Template:Sfn The worst hit place was Hazard;Template:Sfn but most of the settlements along the various tributaries were damaged to some degree.Template:Sfn

Biota

The North Fork was the location of seven species of freshwater mussels as of 1975, and their habitat had suffered from significant reduction since the start of the 20th century.Template:Sfn The reservoir at Carr Fork has been classified as eutrophic because of the sedimentation.Template:Sfn

Contrastingly, whilst Buckhorn Creek has been affected by mining activity, its biota were found to be surviving fairly well, with 42 species of fish observed in the 1960s and 1970s and several species of algae and benthic invertebrates.Template:Sfn It is an important recolonization source for downstream Troublesome Creek.Template:Sfn

Tributaries and other locations

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Connections

A gap connects Whitaker Branch to a minor branch of Tolson Branch.Template:Sfn

A trail leads from the Jakes Branch of Line Fork to the Stony Fork of Leatherwood Creek.Template:Sfn A gap leads from Little Colly Creek to Camp Branch.Template:Sfn Over a ridge from Daniels Branch in one direction is Little Carr Creek and in the other is the Trace Fork of Rockhouse Creek.Template:Sfn Over a ridge from Sandlick Creek is the Camp Branch of Rockhouse Creek.Template:Sfn

A road leads from the Little Sandlick Branch past Polly and over a gap to Sandlick Branch.Template:Sfn A gap from Indian Creek leads to Millstone.Template:Sfn A gap from Trace Fork of Smoot Creek leads to Little Colly Creek.Template:Sfn

Mines

In 1916, Caudill Branch was the location of Nancy Caudill's and Ison Caudill's mines.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

The Swift Coal and Timber Company had mines on Turkey Creek;Template:Sfn Line Fork just downstream of Defeated Creek (on land owned by Mose Ison);Template:Sfn Defeated Creek itself,Template:Sfn and its Wilson Fork and Wolfpen Branch;Template:Sfn and many other locations on Line Fork from Cornetts Branch all of the way to Line's headwatersTemplate:Sfn including on Picture Branch,Template:Sfn Shipley Fork,Template:Sfn Long Branch,Template:Sfn Coyle Branch,Template:Sfn and Jakes Branch.Template:Sfn

See also

Cross-reference

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Sources

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  • Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  • Script error: No such module "citation/CS1". (Template:Trim Coals of the North Fork of Kentucky River in Perry and Portions of Breathitt and Knott Counties at the Internet Archive)
  • Script error: No such module "citation/CS1". (Template:Trim The Coals of Letcher County at the Internet Archive)
  • Template:Cite periodical
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  • Script error: No such module "citation/CS1". (Template:Trim The Kentucky River Navigation at the Internet Archive)

Further reading

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  • Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  • Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1". — entered as evidence into the Congressional Record on 1968-03-08 in support of Senate Bill 3123 ("The Mined Lands Conservation Act of 1968")

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