Swift Creek, a Biological Treasure
Flowing in a southeasterly direction from its source in Vance County, Swift Creek winds its way 95 miles through the rolling landscape of the piedmont until its end where it enters the Tar River near the Town of Tarboro. Between its beginning and end exists a biological treasure rarely found in today’s eastern United States. No other stream in the state of North Carolina has a more diverse or abundant native mussel population. Nine rare and endangered mussels call the waters of Swift Creek home.
Included in that group is the endemic Tar River spinymussel (yes, it is found no where else on earth). The Spinymussel, averaging 2.5” in length, is one of only three freshwater species of mussel in the world to have spines. Along with populations of mussels, Swift Creek supports diverse populations of fish, amphibians, insects, crustaceans and plants. Even though Swift Creek’s 270 square mile watershed is only 5% of the 5500 square mile Tar-Pamlico River watershed, it is home to 7% of all the fish species found in North America!
Mussels are very susceptible to pollution, specifically sediment and ammonia. Of the 60 freshwater mussel species occurring in North Carolina, slightly over half are listed as Endangered, Threatened, or species of Special Concern by the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission. Due to Swift Creek’s biological importance, as well as its importance in protecting the quality of the Tar River (and your drinking water), in 2002 PTRF successfully petitioned the NC Environmental Management Commission to declare Swift Creek an Outstanding Resource Water. However, in 2003 the General Assembly, acting on behalf of special interests including the NC Homebuilders Association, stripped ORW protections for the lower one-third of the Swift Creek Watershed. While ORW protections do not go far enough to protect the existing mussel and fish populations, it does provide the creek with some additional safeguards. The Division of Water Quality responded with a specific management plan for Swift Creek, including the unprotected downstream region, and presented this to the EMC in 2004. The plan, which includes good recommendations, has gone nowhere. PTRF continues to work for the protections Swift Creek needs in order to remain our “Biological Treasure” of the east.
NATIONAL WILDLIFE MAGAZINE
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AT A PARTICULAR BEND on eastern North Carolina's Swift Creek, the stream banks rise from the water in towering palisades of beech and mountain laurel. Mossy boulders clad the shore. Fingers of muscadine vines trail in the water, sheltering wood ducks half hidden under holly branches. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, a white-tailed deer slips into the water for a 100-yard swim down the creek. Sunlight glints from its antlers.
Just then we drift around the bend, after nearly th...
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