Mud Run is a tributary of Green Creek in

Columbia County, Pennsylvania Columbia County is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is located in Northeastern Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the population was 64,727. Its county seat is Bloomsburg. The county was created on March 22, 1813, from part ...

, in the United States. It is long and flows through Greenwood Township. The stream's watershed has an area of 13.3 square miles and is located in Greenwood Township, Orange Township, and Mount Pleasant Township. The stream is in the

ridge and valley The Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians, also called the Ridge and Valley Province or the Valley and Ridge Appalachians, are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian division and are also a belt within the Appalachian Mountains extending ...

physiographic province. Its annual load of

sediment Sediment is a naturally occurring material that is broken down by processes of weathering and erosion, and is subsequently transported by the action of wind, water, or ice or by the force of gravity acting on the particles. For example, sand an ...

is . The Kramer Covered Bridge crosses the stream.

Course

Mud Run begins in Greenwood Township on the western side of Bunker Hill. It flows south at first and after a short distance crosses

Pennsylvania Route 254 Pennsylvania Route 254 (PA 254) is a state highway located in Northumberland, Montour, and Columbia counties in Pennsylvania. The western terminus is at PA 405 in Milton. The eastern terminus is at PA 487 near Benton. Route description ...

. The stream then turns southeast and flows into the

Greenwood Valley Greenwood Valley () is an ice-filled valley at the west side of Wilson Piedmont Glacier, lying between Staeffler Ridge and Mount Doorly in Victoria Land, Antarctica. It was named by the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names for Russell A. Greenwo ...

. It then turns east and flows parallel to the southern edge of the valley for a number of miles, receiving several unnamed tributaries on the way. Near its mouth, the stream bends southeast and flows into Green Creek at the border between Greenwood Township and Orange Township.

Hydrology

The daily load of

in Mud Run is per day, which equates to a load of per year. The

total maximum daily load A total maximum daily load (TMDL) is a regulatory term in the U.S. Clean Water Act, describing a plan for restoring impaired waters that identifies the maximum amount of a pollutant that a body of water can receive while still meeting water quali ...

for sediment in the stream is . The sediment loads are not significantly affected by the area's geology. Croplands are the largest source of sediment in the Mud Run watershed, contributing per year. of sediment comes from stream banks annually, comes from hay and pastures, comes from land classified as "transition" by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. of sediment comes from forests and land considered by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection to be "low-intensity development" contribute of sediment to the stream per year. The entirety of Mud Run and all its tributaries are considered by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection to be impaired, with the exception of the streams in the watershed of Mud Run's final tributary.

Geography and geology

Greenwood Valley from Turkey Path Road 3

Mud Run is located in the

physiographic province. Elevations on Mud Run and its tributaries range from under above sea level to more than above sea level. The elevation of the stream near its mouth is exactly . There are steep slopes in the watershed. The K-factor, a measure of inherent soil

erodability Erodability (or erodibility) is the inherent yielding or nonresistance of soils and rocks to erosion. A high erodability implies that the same amount of work exerted by the erosion processes leads to a larger removal of material. Because the mechani ...

of the Mud Run watershed is 0.3 for wetlands, 0.29 for cropland, 0.284 for hay and pastures, and 0.26 for forests. The watershed's LS factor, which concerns slope steepness and length, is 4.705 in forests, 1.348 in hay and pastures.

Watershed

The watershed of Mud Run has an area of 13.3 square miles. Much of the watershed, including the entirety of the stream and its tributaries, is in Greenwood Township. However, parts of the watershed are located in Orange Township and Mount Pleasant Township. The largest use of land in the watershed is agriculture, which makes up 49.3% of the watershed's area. 1,756.9 acres are hay and pasture and 2,394.4 are cropland. Forested land makes up nearly as much of the watershed, 45.4%. The remainder of the land is designated as "low-intensity development" by the

Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is the agency in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania responsible for protecting and preserving the land, air, water, and public health through enforcement of the state's environmental laws. ...

(5.2%), or is a

wetland A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in the soils. The ...

(0.1%). There are of streams in the watershed of Mud Run. of streams are considered by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection to be impaired.

Biology

Mud Run is designated as a

trout Trout are species of freshwater fish belonging to the genera '' Oncorhynchus'', ''Salmo'' and ''Salvelinus'', all of the subfamily Salmoninae of the family Salmonidae. The word ''trout'' is also used as part of the name of some non-salmoni ...

-stocked fishery and a migratory fishery. Conservation farming is not extensively practiced in the watershed of Mud Run. There are few or no

riparian buffer A riparian buffer or stream buffer is a vegetated area (a "buffer strip") near a stream, usually forested, which helps shade and partially protect the stream from the impact of adjacent land uses. It plays a key role in increasing water quality i ...

s on the stream. The P factor of the watershed, which concerns conservation farming practices, is on a scale of 0 to 1, 0.45 in the watershed's agricultural lands, 0.52 in forests, and 0.1 in wetlands.

History and etymology

Mud Run is named for the fact that it is often

mud A MUD (; originally multi-user dungeon, with later variants multi-user dimension and multi-user domain) is a Multiplayer video game, multiplayer Time-keeping systems in games#Real-time, real-time virtual world, usually Text-based game, text-bas ...

dy, especially after significant rainfall. The Kramer Covered Bridge No. 113 crosses Mud Run. It was built in 1881 and named after Alexander Kramer, a farmer in the area. The bridge is long and was repaired in 2008.

References

{{authority control Rivers of Columbia County, Pennsylvania Tributaries of Fishing Creek (North Branch Susquehanna River) Rivers of Pennsylvania