Brush Creek or Rincon Creek is a tributary of

Santa Rosa Creek Santa Rosa Creek is a stream in Sonoma County, California, which rises on Hood Mountain and discharges to the Laguna de Santa Rosa by way of the Santa Rosa Flood Control Channel. This article covers both the creek and the channel. Descriptio ...

Sonoma County, California Sonoma County ( ) is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States census, its population was 488,863. Its seat of government and largest city is Santa Rosa. Sonoma County comprises the Santa Rosa-Petaluma ...

. Brush Creek rises in the southern slopes of the

Mayacamas Mountains The Mayacamas Mountains are located in northwestern California in the United States. The mountain range is part of the Northern Inner Coast Ranges, of the California Coast Ranges System. Geography The Mayacamas Mountains are located south of th ...

within Sonoma County. The lower reach of the creek is a suburban medium density residential area in the city of

Santa Rosa Santa Rosa is the Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish name for Saint Rose. Santa Rosa may also refer to: Places Argentina *Santa Rosa, Mendoza, a city * Santa Rosa, Tinogasta, Catamarca * Santa Rosa, Valle Viejo, Catamarca *Santa Rosa, La Pampa * S ...

, and that reach of Brush Creek has been restored during the 1990s under a

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent agency of the United States government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it began operation on De ...

grant to promote

steelhead Steelhead, or occasionally steelhead trout, is the Fish migration#Classification, anadromous form of the coastal rainbow trout or Columbia River redband trout (''O. m. gairdneri'', also called redband steelhead). Steelhead are native to cold-wa ...

migration and

spawning Spawn is the Egg cell, eggs and Spermatozoa, sperm released or deposited into water by aquatic animals. As a verb, ''to spawn'' refers to the process of freely releasing eggs and sperm into a body of water (fresh or marine); the physical act is ...

. Further restoration and incorporation into citywide park planning is currently underway as of 2006. The location of the confluence with Santa Rosa Creek is particularly noteworthy, since it was a locus of prehistoric life as a

village A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban v ...

of the

Pomo people The Pomo are a Indigenous peoples of California, Native American people of California. Historical Pomo territory in Northern California was large, bordered by the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast to the west, extending inland to ...

and a scenic geologic feature of massive flat boulder

outcrop An outcrop or rocky outcrop is a visible exposure of bedrock or ancient superficial deposits on the surface of the Earth and other terrestrial planets. Features Outcrops do not cover the majority of the Earth's land surface because in most p ...

s within the stream channel. Brush Creek is a watercourse of approximately three miles in length that drains the area known as Rincon Valley in north Santa Rosa and the outlying unincorporated areas. The stream is shown on U.S. Geological Survey topographic maps as Rincon Creek. On current maps, Rincon Creek is a

tributary A tributary, or an ''affluent'', is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream (''main stem'' or ''"parent"''), river, or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries, and the main stem river into which they ...

that forms a confluence with Brush Creek approximately four kilometers upstream from the mouth of Brush Creek (near Montecito Boulevard). Thus today's nomenclature makes Rincon Creek essentially the west fork of upper Brush Creek.

Lower reach and confluence with Santa Rosa Creek

The Flat Rocks feature at the confluence with Santa Rosa Creek was an important element of the prehistoric Pomo village at this site and is currently a picturesque protected area for trail

hiker A hike is a long, vigorous walking, walk, usually on trails or footpaths in the countryside. Walking for pleasure developed in Europe during the eighteenth century. Long hikes as part of a religious pilgrimage have existed for a much longer tim ...

s to enjoy. Immediately above the confluence is a modified channel that was designed to allow encroachment by residential development. The open channel has an obvious geometric form where banks have been steepened from the natural original contours; nevertheless, there is considerable

riparian A riparian zone or riparian area is the interface between land and a river or stream. In some regions, the terms riparian woodland, riparian forest, riparian buffer zone, riparian corridor, and riparian strip are used to characterize a ripar ...

vegetation Vegetation is an assemblage of plants and the ground cover they provide. It is a general term, without specific reference to particular Taxon, taxa, life forms, structure, Spatial ecology, spatial extent, or any other specific Botany, botanic ...

of Arroyo willow and Broad-leaf cattail (''

Typha latifolia ''Typha latifolia'' is a perennial herbaceous wetland plant in the genus ''Typha''. It is known in English as bulrushStreeter D, Hart-Davies C, Hardcastle A, Cole F, Harper L. 2009. ''Collins Flower Guide''. Harper Collins (sometimes as common b ...

''). Chief native trees along the banks are Coast live oak (''

Quercus agrifolia ''Quercus agrifolia'', the California live oak, or coast live oak, is an evergreen live oak native to the California Floristic Province. Live oaks are so-called because they keep living leaves on the tree all year, adding young leaves and sheddi ...

'') and Garry oak (''

Quercus garryana ''Quercus garryana'' is an oak tree species named for Nicholas Garry, deputy governor of the Hudson's Bay Company. It is commonly known as the Garry oak, Oregon white oak or Oregon oak. The species is found in the Pacific Northwest, with a rang ...

''). Low flows at the end of summer amount to no more than a few cubic feet (50-100 liters) per second; however, after one of the first rains of autumn of approximately , the flow increases to about per second. Substantial

energy dissipation In thermodynamics, dissipation is the result of an irreversible process that affects a thermodynamic system. In a dissipative process, energy (internal, bulk flow kinetic, or system potential) transforms from an initial form to a final form, whe ...

is achieved by the willows and cattails that choke the creek in this reach. The sides are partially armored with

asphalt Asphalt most often refers to: * Bitumen, also known as "liquid asphalt cement" or simply "asphalt", a viscous form of petroleum mainly used as a binder in asphalt concrete * Asphalt concrete, a mixture of bitumen with coarse and fine aggregates, u ...

to achieve stabilization of the unnatural slope and to minimize scouring and

erosion Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as Surface runoff, water flow or wind) that removes soil, Rock (geology), rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust#Crust, Earth's crust and then sediment transport, tran ...

. In this reach of Brush Creek, Ducker Creek joins from the east and a west fork of Brush Creek forms a confluence somewhat higher from the west. Soils comprising the

streambed A streambed or stream bed is the bottom of a stream or river and is confined within a channel or the banks of the waterway. Usually, the bed does not contain terrestrial (land) vegetation and instead supports different types of aquatic vegetat ...

of upper and lower reaches are classified as the riverwash series in the U.S.

Soil Conservation Service Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), formerly known as the Soil Conservation Service (SCS), is an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) that provides technical assistance to farmers and other private landowners and ...

Classification System. These materials according to the

U.S. Department of Agriculture The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is an executive department of the United States federal government that aims to meet the needs of commercial farming and livestock food production, promotes agricultural trade and production ...

, consist of very recent deposition of

gravel Gravel () is a loose aggregation of rock fragments. Gravel occurs naturally on Earth as a result of sedimentation, sedimentary and erosion, erosive geological processes; it is also produced in large quantities commercially as crushed stone. Gr ...

and

silt Silt is granular material of a size between sand and clay and composed mostly of broken grains of quartz. Silt may occur as a soil (often mixed with sand or clay) or as sediment mixed in suspension (chemistry), suspension with water. Silt usually ...

alluvium along streams.''Soil Survey, Sonoma County, California'',

, Government Printing Office, Washington DC, May 1972 Layering of soils and gravels brought in from higher elevations has resulted to form the streambed.

Upper reach

The upper reach may be defined as that portion of the

watershed Watershed may refer to: Hydrology * Drainage divide, the line that separates neighbouring drainage basins * Drainage basin, an area of land where surface water converges (North American usage) Music * Watershed Music Festival, an annual country ...

above Montecito Boulevard, most of which is in the unincorporated area of Sonoma County. In these reaches the creek has little modification, save for residential development along Anderson Drive which encroaches into the

area. Thus there are no flood control channel improvements, other than the Middle Fork Brush Creek reservoir constructed near Saddle Creek Drive. Above Badger Road there is a dam across Brush Creek, forming this small

reservoir A reservoir (; ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam, usually built to water storage, store fresh water, often doubling for hydroelectric power generation. Reservoirs are created by controlling a watercourse that drains an existing body of wa ...

. Headwaters of Brush Creek flow into the reservoir from two forks. There is virtually no public access to the creek or reservoir in the upper reach. There is less cattail vegetation and more mature Garry oaks and

Valley oak ''Quercus lobata'', commonly called the valley oak or roble, is the largest of the California oaks. It is endemic to the state, growing in interior valleys and foothills from Siskiyou to San Diego counties. Deciduous, it requires year-round grou ...

s in this reach. Above Baird the landscape turns into chiefly agricultural

grazing In agriculture, grazing is a method of animal husbandry whereby domestic livestock are allowed outdoors to free range (roam around) and consume wild vegetations in order to feed conversion ratio, convert the otherwise indigestible (by human diges ...

land in the lower

foothills Foothills or piedmont are geography, geographically defined as gradual increases in elevation at the base of a mountain range, higher hill range or an highland, upland area. They are a transition zone between plains and low terrain, relief hill ...

of the Mayacmas western slopes.

References

{{Russian River Rivers of Sonoma County, California Rivers of Northern California Tributaries of the Russian River (California)

Lower reach and confluence with Santa Rosa Creek

Upper reach

See also

References