Cat Point Creek Special Project Area

Location: Richmond and Westmoreland counties

Description: Cat Point Creek is 19 miles long and runs the width of the Northern Neck with 46,800 acres of varying terrain that includes farms, streams, forests, mill ponds, and wetlands. The lower tidal portions of the creek are in the boundary of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Rappahannock River Valley National Wildlife Refuge.

The watershed connects several important historic resources, including Menokin, Stratford Hall and George Washington's birthplace. It includes lush marshes and other habitats for ducks, eagles, peregrine falcons, and it is part of an Important Bird Area designated by the National Audubon Society. Cat Point Creek is recognized as an important resource in both the Richmond County and Westmoreland County Comprehensive Land Use Plans.

The Cat Point Creek Watershed area is rich in biological diversity. A 2004 study (The Cat Point Creek Watershed Management Plan) ranked Cat Point Creek as a high priority watershed for non-point source pollution potential end high natural heritage value. The Nature Conservancy has identified Cat Point Creek as an aquatic portfolio and one of only a few "last great places" in the Coastal Plain of Virginia.

Designated by VOF: June 25, 2010

Nominated by: Northern Neck Land Conservancy

Nomination supported by: Richmond County, Westmoreland County, Robert E. Lee Memorial Association (Stratford Hall), the Northern Neck Planning District Commission, the Tidewater Resource Conservation and Development Council, the Eastern Virginia Rivers National Wildlife Refuge Complex of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Delegate Albert Pollard (Ninety-Ninth District, Virginia House of Delegates), Senator Richard H. Stuart, (District 28, Senate of Virginia), and Congressman Robert J. Wittman,(1st District, U.S. House of Representatives)

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