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Five Mile Creek, called Five Mile Slough on recent maps, is an urban waterway beginning at Rivara Road and Pacific Avenue in Stockton, California. Storm water is pumped into the creek at this site during the rainy season from November to April. The creek meanders westward through residential areas and the city’s Swenson Park and Swenson Golf Course on its way to 14-Mile Slough where a weir controls the tidal flow from 14-Mile Slough into the creek. The amount of summer tidal flow is reduced by the irrigation water taken from the creek by the golf course and park. 14-Mile Slough connects to the San Joaquin River and thence to San Francisco Bay. On its course it travels under city streets, private bridges and Interstate 5 through city and unincorporated areas.
The width of the creek varies from around three feet at Rivara and Pacific to 45 feet in places. During the dry season which runs from April to November, about one quarter of the easternmost part is dry without enough tidal water reaching it. Water depth in the remaining three quarters does not exceed four feet at the center of the creekbed, sloping up to the banks which have severely eroded over the years. At one measureable site, erosion has taken six feet off both banks in the past 30 years.
The creek and its surrounding riparian corridor support a wide variety of birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, fish, insects and other invertebrates punctuated by migratory flocks of birds and seasonal individuals.