Overview

      The Sideling Hill Creek watershed is approximately 104 square miles in size and considered one of the most pristine streams of the Pennsylvania and Maryland Ridge and Valley Province, earning it “Exceptional Value” status by the PA Department of Environmental Protection. In all there are over 287 stream miles in the watershed, most of which are small perennial and intermittent streams forming nine different subwatersheds within the Sideling Hill Creek watershed. These subwatersheds include the Bear Creek, Stahle Run, Trough Run, East Branch Sideling Hill, West Branch Sideling Hill, Piney Creek, Johnson Branch, Blackberry Lick Run, and Crooked Run subwatersheds. Sideling Hill Creek and its tributaries are characterized by fluctuating stream flows, varying from less than 20 cubic feet per second in the precipitation-lean summer months to around 150 cubic feet per second in the early spring.

Beginning in the southeastern part of Bedford County, Pennsylvania at the confluence of the East Branch (locally known as “Little Creek”) and the West Branches (“Big Creek”) of Sideling Hill Creek near Purcell, PA., Sideling Hill Creek follows a 25 serpentine course south toward the Potomac River. As Sideling Hill Creek meanders south it flows through narrow agricultural valleys and below steep forested ridges, which parallel each other in a northeast-southwest direction. Along the way the creek encounters a mosaic of habitats which play home to a diverse array of plants, animals, fish, and insects. In all, there are at least 37 species of special concern in the watershed, including Harperella, a semi-aquatic plant that grows in seasonally exposed cobblestone shoals, and the Southern Grizzled Skipper, a moth species that depends upon shale barrens during part of its life history.

The watershed is largely forested (75%) with small-scale agriculture existing on most of the remaining landscape (23%). While many of the watershed’s approximately 2000 residents are involved in the forestry or agricultural sectors of the economy, a large portion of Sideling Hill Creek’s residents travel as far as Hagerstown, MD (1 hour away) for work. The rural lifestyle and low population density (less than 20 people per square mile) is one of the main reasons people live in the watershed. The Sideling Hill Creek watershed has an active community that plans and attends activities ranging from Blue Grass festivals at the Artemas Community Park to little league at the Artemas ballpark. One of the watershed’s most cherished activities is hunting, which is a long held tradition in the community that many families plan entire reunions around. Because of the importance of maintaining a rural way of life, activities such as hunting and hiking, and generally low intensity resource use, the Sideling Hill Creek watershed has persisted in near pristine condition for generations.