Mechums River Watershed

     The Mechums River Watershed is 99 square miles, and is the largest feeder watershed to the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir,  the major public water supply for Charlottesville and Albemarle County. Major streams within the watershed include the Mechums River, Stockton Creek, Lickinghole Creek, and Beaver Creek. The Beaver Creek Reservoir, the public water supply for Crozet, is located on Beaver Creek downstream from Crozet. Lake Albemarle, a public fishing and boating lake maintained by the Department of Game & Inland Fisheries, is also located in the Mechums Watershed. Communities within the watershed include Crozet, Greenwood, Batesville, Yancey Mills, and part of White Hall (generally south of Garth Road).
    The Mechums River has been monitored over the years by the Department of Environmental Quality, the Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority, and through the Rivanna River Basin Project (sponsored by the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission). Most notably, the Mechums watershed is thought to produce the highest sediment load to the downstream South Fork Rivanna Reservoir. Biological monitoring is currently being conducted within the Rivanna River Watershed, including in the Mechums Watershed, by the StreamWatch volunteer stream monitoring program.
     The Mechums is one of the local streams that is continuously monitored for stream flow by the Department of Environmental Quality and U.S. Geologic Survey: see Real-Time Mechums River Flow Gage.