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Piney Branch is a tributary of Rock Creek, itself a free-flowing tributary of the Potomac River, which empties into the Atlantic Ocean via the Chesapeake Bay in the United States. Located in the Northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C., it runs along Piney Branch Parkway, and joins Rock Creek at Piney Branch and Beach Drive inside Rock Creek Park. Generally about wide and deep, the Piney Branch creek is an Order 1 stream with a surface length of . It drains a watershed of about or 2,500 acres, its surface stream drainage augmented by four combined sewer and storm sewer systems that discharge into it. About 5% of the watershed consists of forested parkland near its surface stream. The rest is residential with some light industrial. The creek is listed as "impaired for" (polluted by) 10 chemicals and four metals: lead, copper, zinc, and arsenic.〔 It is the largest tributary located entirely within the Washington city limits.〔 It is spanned by the 16th Street Bridge, the country's first parabolic arch bridge. ==History== In prehistoric times, the creek's valley was a source of quartzite cobbles for toolmaking. One quarry site is located at the bluffs overlooking Piney Branch from the north, about 30 feet below the summit of a southeast-facing hill. Dubbed the Piney Branch Quarry Site, it was first examined by archeologist William Henry Holmes in 1889 and 1890. Another investigation begin in 2006 revealed quartzite debitage, whole and broken turtleback “preforms,” and half of a large ax. In the mid-1800s, the creek's valley was the location of the first road through the area that would become Rock Creek Park. Called Piney Branch Road or 14th Street Road, the narrow country way went north from the Mount Pleasant neighborhood down into the valley, across a rickety bridge just west of today's 16th Street Bridge, then climbed up to the present-day neighborhood of Crestwood. Funding to build the Piney Branch Parkway, which runs along the creek for most of its length, was "authorized in 1907, but not built until the mid-1930s when funding and workers became available through the New Deal."〔 In 2014, the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority began design work on the Piney Branch Trunk Sewer Rehabilitation Project, a series of repairs and improvements to the combined sewer and storm sewer system that discharges into the creek. Composed of 8- to 10-foot brick and concrete pipes, the Piney Branch Trunk Sewer is one of the city’s major trunk sewers. Project design was slated to start in January 2014 and last one year. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Piney Branch」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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