Six Mile Creek Watershed

Natural and Human History

The Six Mile Creek watershed covers nearly 51 square miles and provides drinking water for the City of Ithaca. The creek has its headwaters in the Towns of Caroline and Dryden, and encompasses numerous tributaries and spectacular gorges.

Land use throughout the watershed is varied. Forests, rural, and agricultural lands dominate the headwaters giving way to a more suburban and urban character near the City of Ithaca, where Six Mile Creek joins the Cayuga Lake Inlet. Wildlife, such as deer and turkey benefit from the variety of forest and open habitat in the watershed.

Geological History

To fully understand the nature of the creek, we need to look back in history- to a point long before human development began to impact the landscape. The history of our modern-day creek begins some 12,000 years ago, when glaciers from the most recent ice age reached their southern-most extent in New York. The ancient valley, in which Cayuga Lake is now, was deepened by the glaciers and flooded by glacial melt water. Tremendous deposits of ice and scoured material (till) formed dams that trapped large pools of water as the glaciers receded. Although these impoundments were short-lived by geologic standards, they existed long enough to leave behind large clay deposits as very fine particles settled on the lake beds. One such outwash lake, Lake Slaterville, covered much of what became the Six Mile Creek Valley

The down-cutting of the Cayuga Valley resulted in the waterfalls and gorges for which the Ithaca area is known, but it also left hanging valleys and steeply graded, geologically active tributary streams. Six Mile Creek is one of those streams coursing through easily eroded glacial till and encountering soft layers of fine silt and clay that are remnants of its glacial past. View PDF map of the watershed’s topography.

Human History

Although Native Americans dwelt here for thousands of years, it wasn’t until the arrival of European settlers after the Revolutionary War that the face of the landscape began to change in ways that have impacted the creek.

While the initial establishment of farmsteads was spread throughout the watershed, small towns arose around the local mills. This brought human development into direct contact with the creek. Flood events are not well documented prior to the early 1900’s, the history of several buildings in Brooktondale attests to the fact that pioneers found it necessary to move the structures away from unstable banks on a number of occasions.

While rural residents largely depended on wells for water supply, the growing City of Ithaca became dependent on Six Mile Creek, piping water from reservoirs built in 1902 and 1911. As was typical in that era, the creek also provided a convenient disposal system for a variety of wastes. Contamination from tanneries, livestock operations and outhouses along the creek was blamed for Ithaca’s 1903 typhoid epidemic.

Present Day

The Six Mile Creek Watershed encompasses a human population with varied interests and backgrounds. Increased use of automobiles has allowed strong connections between rural residents in upland areas and the downstream community of Ithaca. Agriculture is still an important component of our culture and economy, as well as being a critical partner in watershed protection.

	These cows are using an engineered stream crossing that minimizes erosion. Image: USDA.

Today, the watershed is a patchwork of land-uses including agriculture, forests, commercial and high to low-density residential areas. The impact of development can be extensive if not well-managed.
	Image: USDA

Charting the Future

Analyses available to us now indicate that the watershed and portions of the stream may be recovering from the impact of past activities. However, it should be kept in mind that the glacial history of Six Mile Creek has left it vulnerable to a high degree of naturally occurring erosion and change. We need to accept that the creek cannot be fully “controlled”, and that some portions will always be prone to erosion and shifting channels.

A Civilian Conservation Corps in Slaterville reforested many of the region's farms, abandoned during the Great Depression. Today in Caroline alone there are 7000 acres of State Forest.

In other cases, improved understanding of the creek and its natural systems, combined with appropriate engineering approaches, may lead to a healthy coexistence between the creek and human activities.

We now have a tremendous opportunity to chart a new course for our future relationship with Six Mile Creek and the watershed upon which we depend. We hope you will join us in this process!