Last updated: May 26, 2023
Place
Information Panel: "Herring Highway"- Picnic Grove 8
NPS / Claire Hassler
Quick Facts
Location:
Beach Drive/Picnic Area #08
Significance:
Information Panel
Amenities
1 listed
Historical/Interpretive Information/Exhibits
This panel is part of the Herring Hill series and is located in the parking area of Picnic Grove 8.
Boulder step pools dot this stretch of creek for an important reason. They were created to provide an essential passageway for migratory fish. Many sewer lines crisscross Rock Creek. Once buried, the pipes have been exposed due to high volumes of storm water washing away the creek bed that covered them. At this spot, fish could not swim over exposed pipes and active lines cannot be removed. Carefully built boulder step pools create channels and pools to allow for fish passage over these pipese. Through this restoration project, the "Herring Highway", restores native Blueback herring and Alewife to their ancestral spawning ground in upper Rock Creek.
Please leave the rocks wehre they are. Future herring populations depend on these pools and channels for migration upstream.
Picnic Grove #8 is 7.7 miles upstream from the Potmoac River.
Rock Creek meanders 33 miles from its source in Montgomery County, Maryland through suburban and densely populated urban areas until it reaches the Potomac River. From there the water continues to flow southeast 112 miles to the Chesapeake Bay and another 80 miles to the Atlantic Ocean.
Boulder step pools dot this stretch of creek for an important reason. They were created to provide an essential passageway for migratory fish. Many sewer lines crisscross Rock Creek. Once buried, the pipes have been exposed due to high volumes of storm water washing away the creek bed that covered them. At this spot, fish could not swim over exposed pipes and active lines cannot be removed. Carefully built boulder step pools create channels and pools to allow for fish passage over these pipese. Through this restoration project, the "Herring Highway", restores native Blueback herring and Alewife to their ancestral spawning ground in upper Rock Creek.
Please leave the rocks wehre they are. Future herring populations depend on these pools and channels for migration upstream.
Picnic Grove #8 is 7.7 miles upstream from the Potmoac River.
Rock Creek meanders 33 miles from its source in Montgomery County, Maryland through suburban and densely populated urban areas until it reaches the Potomac River. From there the water continues to flow southeast 112 miles to the Chesapeake Bay and another 80 miles to the Atlantic Ocean.