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Brown's Creek
is a tributary of the St. Croix River. It is located in
central Washington County, near the north end of Stillwater.
The stream is 9.7 miles long, begins in flat marshy land,
broken by low mostly forrested hill of glacial drift and
is fed by numerous springs. The middle reach of the stream
flows through various  swamps
and marshes with substrates of mucky peat, changing to coarse
sand-gravel in areas with higher gradients. The lower reaches
of the stream cut deeply into the steeply sloping hills
of sandstone and dolomite adjacent to the St. Croix River.
Cold groundwater provides a major component of the portion
of the stream, and it is the only portion that supports
trout. The lower reach is stocked annually with 800 yearling
brown trout by DNR fisheries.
Browns Creek
underwent a re-route in the fall of 1999. The re-route changed
the course of the stream so that it no longer ran through
wetland. The re-route will have changes on the stream by
increasing peak velocities, decreasing temperatures and
decreasing the available organic matter in the stream. The
re-route work was upstream from both sample sites.
A beaver dam
upstream of W3 was seen in the fall of 1999 and failed on
its own by the fall of 2000. Beaver dams increase the nutrient
load in the river by creating a lake effect in the dammed
upper portion of the stream.
The Brown's Creek
Watershed District encompasses 18 square miles and contain
portions of the following communites: Grant, Hugo, Lake
Elmo, May Township, Oak Park Heights, Stillwater, and Stillwater
Township.
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