Effects of Sewage and of a Headwaters Impoundment on the Fishes of Stillwater Creek in Payne County, Oklahoma

The relative abundance of fishes in Stillwater Creek and principal tributaries, Payne and Noble Counties, Oklahoma, was studied in 1938 (Moore and Mizelle, 1939). During this 20-station survey the mainstream and tributaries above the city of Stillwater consisted of intermittent pools. Below Stillwater a slight flow was maintained by city sewage outlets. At that time something less than 750,000 gallons of processed sewage entered the stream daily. The quantity and quality of this influx did not markedly influence the stream's turbidity or its abundance of fishes. The entire stream was, and undoubtedly had long been, extremely muddy. Its water level fluctuated widely, floods followed by reduction to intermittent pools occurring almost annually.