Like other urban watersheds, the Briar/ Little Sugar Creek watershed has endured various forms of degradation and pollution, both historically and in the present. As you’ll recall from the previous post “Watershed Mapping,” Uptown Charlotte was founded in 1768 on a ridge crest between Little Sugar Creek and Irwin Creek. Little Sugar Creek was named after the Sugaree Indians, who were once prominent in the area before European settlement and diseases arrived in the 1700s. “Sugaree” roughly translates to “people of the river of water which is unfit to drink” (Newsom, 2015). As Charlotte experienced early growth and development outwards from Uptown, the creeks were met with relentless degradation. Grain mills and saw mills dotted the banks of local creeks, and Charlotte later grew into a major railroad and textile manufacturing hub (CMSWS, 2021). In the 1880s, Briar Creek once supplied drinking water for Charlotte’s residents, until it became murky and toxic. Little Sugar Creek runs through some of the city’s oldest neighborhoods, and has endured centuries of pollution from governments, businesses, and residents (Newsom, 2015). The creeks essentially served as the city’s dumping grounds, for untreated industrial waste and sewage alike.
A Charlotte Daily News article described Little Sugar in 1903 as a “death-dealing nuisance” as the smell and stench of the creek had grown unbearable. The toxic waters contained no life, only trash and the occasional rat along the banks. City officials even attempted to empty barrels of orange-blossom scent into the creek to mask the foul order, with unsurprisingly no success (Newsom, 2015). In the 1970s and 1908s, Charlotte's banking industry took off, leading to major urban development and growth. Businesses continued to build near the creek and pavement covered its natural floodplains, worsening damage from flooding events (CMSWS, 2021). Little Sugar was even covered with concrete caps and diverted into culverts as businesses needed more space for parking lots. This was occurring in cities nationwide around this time, as the natural flow of streams were altered with concrete gutters, culverts, channels, and ditches to support growing urban infrastructure.
A concrete box culvert directing Little Sugar Creek under East Woodlawn Rd. | Image Credit: Cecilia Kammire
Throughout the second half of the 1900s, local ordinances to improve water quality in the creeks strengthened gradually. In 1999, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Storm Water Services (CMSWS) passed the Surface Water Improvement and Management (SWIM) Stream Buffer ordinance to protect stream corridors and prevent further flooding. A major change came for the creeks in 1972 with the Clean Water Act, which provided new wastewater standards and prohibited chemicals and sewage being directly piped into the creeks. Over time, the worst sources of point-source pollution began to ease from factories and sewage plants.
Unfortunately, Briar/ Little Sugar Creek still endures heavy pollution today from stormwater runoff intensified through rapid urbanization. Every time it rains, water from streets, roofs, and construction sites flows across impervious surfaces into storm drains, which directly empty into Charlotte's lakes and streams. Stormwater runoff can carry a wide range of non-point source pollution: including sediment, fertilizer, feces, trash, harmful bacteria, heavy metals, and car oil from roads. As I walked along Little Sugar recently, plastic bags and debris piles along the bank indicated recent water levels, serving as an unfortunate reminder that the creek is a confluence for urban debris and less visible pollution alike.
Little Sugar Creek and nearly all other creeks in Charlotte are officially listed by the state as "impaired" meaning, "that they are not clean enough to support swimming, fishing, or diverse and abundant aquatic life." Join me in upcoming posts that will explore stream restoration efforts along Little Sugar, in addition to a deep dive into the major threats facing Charlotte's creeks today.
References:
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Storm Water Services. (2021, April). Sustainable Stormwater Management Strategy for a Thriving City. City of Charlotte. https://www.charlottenc.gov/files/sharedassets/city/v/1/services/stormwater/documents/about-us/charlottestormwaterservicesstrategicplanapril2021.pdf
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Storm Water Services, https://www.charlottenc.gov/Services/Stormwater
Newsom, M. (2015, March 26). Little Sugar: The Creek the City Loved to Hate. Keeping Watch. https://keepingwatch.org/programming/creeks/little-sugar-creek
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