Crab Orchard Creek Watershed

A Flood Control Project in the Upper Crab Orchard Creek Watershed

April 1998

The Setting

The Upper Crab Orchard Creek Watershed is located in southern Illinois, about 125 miles southeast of St. Louis, Missouri and 60 miles northwest of Paducah, Kentucky. The 82.2 square-mile watershed includes the rural city of Marion, Illinois in Williamson County. The watershed is home to over 20,000 people, 68 percent of whom live in Marion. Marion serves as a trade center for the surrounding agricultural community. About one-half of the watershed is in cropland. It is also a high quality wildlife area used extensively by geese during migration, and by the endangered Indiana bat and bald eagle. Crab Orchard Creek is the main channel in the drainage basin flowing southwesterly to Crab Orchard Lake, part of the Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge.

The Problem

Flooding has been a chronic problem in the rural community of Marion, Illinois and on downstream agricultural land along Crab Orchard Creek. Marion typically flooded several times each year. Mayor Bob Butler recalls, “Flooding was one problem that plagued and frustrated this city for many, many years. Over time people just developed the attitude that this was something we couldn’t do anything about.”

Recurring flooding has caused expensive damage for many businesses and homes in the City of Marion, Illinois.

Crab Orchard Creek in the vicinity of “Gents Addition” before NRCS’ flood control project. This area was damaged by floodwaters with nearly every heavy rain.

At times, more than four feet of water would inundate the downtown intersection of Court and Main Streets and remain for 3 or 4 days. Flooding in the central business district meant locals could not frequent stores and restaurants, shop owners lost inventory and incurred damage to their buildings, and traffic was disrupted throughout the community. Human lives and safety were threatened when emergency vehicles, including ambulances seeking the only community hospital (located at the flooded intersection), could not pass through the flooded streets.

Over the years, flooding eroded the quality of life in Marion’s residential neighborhoods. The hardest hit area was Gents Addition, a residential area where much of Marion’s low-income and minority population lives. One resident recalled, “Water would come up from the creek and go under the house. It would pull out the insulation. In the last flood, it rushed down the railroad tracks like it was a stream and overtopped cars. Water came down through the streets and we had to evacuate by boat.”

Receding floodwaters left behind garbage and foot-long fish on lawns and porches. Homes in the disadvantaged Gents Addition tend to be substandard. Constant flooding and the threat of flooding seemed to worsen each year, as outlet conditions for Crab Orchard Creek deteriorated. Land around homes, in vacant lots, and the neighborhood park stayed wet and muddy for much of the year.

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