Stroubles Creek

Stream Stroubles Creek flows into the New River, which then flows into the Kanawha River, the Ohio River, the Mississippi River, and finally the Gulf of Mexico. There are two branches that merge at the Virginia Tech Duck Pond: the Main Branch and the Webb Branch. Watershed The Stroubles Creek watershed, a subwatershed of the New River watershed, is . The Stroubles Creek watershed is further divided into an upper and a lower watershed, with the Virginia Tech Duck Pond acting as a divider between the two. The Upper Stroubles Creek watershed is approximately , and it is heavily impacted by urbanization in Blacksburg and on the Virginia Tech campus. The Lower Stroubles Creek watershed includes some urbanized areas on the western side of the Virginia Tech campus, but then it flows mostly through rural lands until it reaches the New River. The watershed is located in karst terrain, with limestone formations, sinkholes, and natural springs. == History ==

European settlers first moved into the Stroubles Creek area in the 1740s. It acted as a water source for the settlers, although today the New River is used as the water source for the area. In 1798, the town of Blacksburg was founded in the upper Stroubles Creek watershed. In 1851, the Preston and Olin Institute was opened, which would later become Virginia Tech. In 1937, Virginia Tech's Drillfield was constructed, which resulted in the main branch of Stroubles Creek being culverted underground. The Virginia Tech Duck Pond was also created at this time when a dam was constructed where the two branches merged. And in 2006, of fuel oil were spilled into the stream from a local hardware store's above-ground storage tank. In 2002, Stroubles Creek was included as an impaired waterway in the Virginia total maximum daily load (TMDL) list of impaired waterways. The Virginia Tech Department of Biological Systems Engineering (BSE) conducted a study on the stream in 2003, and a TMDL implementation plan was completed in 2006 by the Center for TMDL and Watershed Studies through the BSE department. ==See also==