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Dillon Creek Project

 

Project Details

As one of the main sources of water inflow to Lake Wawasee, Dillon Creek has a significant impact on the quality of water in Lake Wawasee. Every year, Dillon Creek deposits a considerable amount of sediment in Lake Wawasee. This impact is evident in the large sediment plume that appears where its waters enter the lake after big rainstorms.

Figure 1: Dillon Creek location Kosciusko and Noble Counties, Indiana

Dillon Creek is an intermittent stream located on the west side of Lake Wawasee in Kosciusko County, Indiana. Dillon Creek drains approximately 3,067 acres (Figure 1 below). Dillon Creek enters Lake Wawasee through a culvert located underneath Honeycomb Lane in the Enchanted Hills Subdivision. When the Enchanted Hills Subdivision was constructed, a larger (and thus deeper) culvert installed at the Honeycomb Lane crossing of Dillon Creek allowed headcutting of the channel from Honeycomb Lane southward to 1100 North Road.

The channel in this 1200-foot wide wooded corridor is severely incised having lost 2 to 4 feet of grade throughout the reach. The sediment from this channel incision process, as well as upstream watershed sediment has nearly filled the first 500 feet of constructed channel north of Honeycomb

Lane. A large plunge pool had also formed at the base of the Culvert. The purpose of this project was to remove the accumulated sediment in the channel and construct an accessible sediment trap with stable embankments at the outlet of the culvert.