South Atlantic Water Science Center
South Atlantic Water Science Center
The Flint River is about 350 miles long and drains an area of 8,460 sq. mi. Most of the larger tributaries in the ACF River basin are located in the Coastal Plain Province part of the Flint River basin. These tributaries-with their Creek Indian meaning in parentheses-include Ichawaynochaway Creek (buck sleeping place), Chickasawhatchee Creek (council house creek), Kinchafoonee Creek (mortar bone or pounding block creek), and Muckalee Creek (pour-upon-me creek) (Utley and Hemperley, 1975).
Spring Creek, formerly a Flint River tributary that now discharges directly into Lake Seminole, drains 585 sq mi in a region of karst topography. As implied by its name, flow in Spring Creek is dominated by ground-water discharge directly into its limestone bed.
From 1977-92, the discharge of the Flint River based on mean daily flows at Newton, Ga., was 4,030 cfs. Mean daily discharge ranged from 922 cfs in 1991 to 47,000 cfs in 1990. Two hydropower dams located on the Flint River impound run-of-the-river reservoirs and do not appreciably influence the flow of the Flint River. The Flint River has one of only 42 free-flowing river reaches longer than 125 mi remaining in the contiguous 48 states (Benke, 1990).
Higher flows during winter months are evident in the annual hydrographs of the Flint River, Ichawaynochaway Creek, and Spring Creek. During winter months, Coastal Plain streams, such as Ichawaynochaway and Spring Creeks, flow for sustained periods through their floodplains.
Text extracted from Couch and others 1995.