Neighbors of Bushy Branch

Welcome to the web page for Bushy Branch Creek

This website was created out of a new-found interest in what we all consider "our creek" (see the "About Us" link to the left for a little back story). It is our hope that this website can serve as an educational resource for the local community and anyone else that has an interest in the water cycle, urban-suburban stream protection, hydrology, water quality, history and geology.

All photos on this website are photos taken of Bushy Branch. It is an interesting creek, composed mostly of groundwater during drier times, but roaring with runoff from impervious surface during particularly intense rainfall. It is hardly "wild", passing via culverts under a huge commercial strip mall and parking lot and then I-440, but it also has several reaches that are wildlife habitat, especially for a creek so near a downtown metropolitan area.

Busy Branch generally has its headwaters in the area immediately south of the North Carolina State Fairgrounds. In this area, there are several large expanses of impervious surface, including the Blue Ridge Road area, with all of its adjacent office and commercial buildings and parking lots, the NC Department of Transportation's facility, and several NC State University buildings. A portion of the multi-lane I-440 and Western Boulevard also drains into this creek. This means that Bushy Branch has a very short time between when rain falls and the creek rises. Hydrologists call this a short "time of concentration". In addition to the large amount of impervious surface, another of the reasons for this very quick rise in creek levels during rainfall is the lack of "storage". In natural conditions, "storage" occurs in soils and vegetation (with a significant amount of this storage getting evaporated or transpired through plants). In built environments, water detention structures such as ponds or basins act to store excess runoff and more slowly release it.

If the area around this creek were being developed today in a regulated development*, there would be much more built storage required in the development plans. However, the development in the headwaters of Bushy Branch pre-dated our modern storm water management practices.

There is a lot to learn about this creek and there are several opportunities to improve the health and hydrology. We hope this website contributes to friends' and residents' understanding, and that different people and groups provide information and attention to this resource.

*Many infill housing projects are exempt from stormwater management requirements. Larger subdivisions and commercial projects have stormwater design criteria that help mitigate peak runoff volumes.