Shades Creek Watershed

Shades Creek is a major tributary to the Cahaba River, located in north-central Alabama. Shades Creek is 56.4 miles long and drains 138 square miles of watershed. Passing through parts of three counties (Jefferson, Shelby, and Bibb), Shades Creek flows through six major urban areas: Irondale, Mountain Brook, Birmingham, Homewood, Hoover, and Bessemer.

Water Quality

Because the headwaters of the creek are in an urban environment, Shades Creek has its share of water quality issues. The Alabama Department of Environmental Management lists Shades Creek as polluted for fecal coliform (bacteria) and sediment. These water quality impairments are caused mainly by sewage overflows, construction, and stream bank erosion.

Aquatic and Wildlife Species

The banks and riparian areas of Shades Creek offer many varieties of native plant species. The creek itself is home to many aquatic species and riparian wildlife. Even in its urban areas, it supports populations of mink, beaver, muskrat, herons, etc.

Parks and Access

You can view and enjoy Shades Creek at many locations in the Birmingham area. Historic Jemison Park on Mountain Brook Parkway in Mountain Brook offers sidewalk trails for walking and jogging as well as benches for daytime enjoyment. A greenway trail for walking, running, and bicycling runs along the creek from Brookwood Colonial Mall to Green Springs Highway.  The Homewood Forest Preserve on South Lakeshore Drive near Homewood High School boasts nature trails near the creek and on the slopes of Shades Mountain.

"Yazoo"

As Shades Creek flows its entire length, it is a “yazoo” or “deferred tributary.” A “yazoo” or “yazoo stream” is a tributary that, deferred from joining the mainstream by a natural levee formation, parallels the larger channel for some significant distance until at last an opening in the bank or levee allows it to empty into the trunk stream.

In the case of Shades Creek, the mainstream (trunk stream) referred to in the definition above is the Cahaba River, and the natural levee formation is Shades Mountain.

Such a stream is named for the Yazoo River in Mississippi that flows along the Mississippi River for miles before joining it above Vicksburg.

The word “yazoo” originated as the name of a small, now vanished Native American tribe that once inhabited central Mississippi.

Source of definition information: Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape by Barry Lopez, Editor, 2006, pages 396-397.
Contributed by James R. Lowery