50 REPORT OF INVESTIGATIONS No. 50
Boggy Creek
The Boggy Creek drainage basin includes 86 square miles of the county in and south of Orlando. An area of about 11 square miles in the upper part of the basin has no surface outlet and drains underground.
Altitudes range from 60 feet at the county line to about 125 feet in the upper basin. The lower part of the basin is fiat and contains many swamps and marshes but relatively few lakes. The upper part of the basin is rolling hills interspersed with many lakes. Figure 20 shows a profile of the bed of Boggy Creek.
Periodic measurements of the discharge of Boggy Creek near Kissimmee (station 9) were made from January 1955 to September 1959. Since September 1959, continuous records of the discharge of Boggy Creek near Taft (station 10) have been collected. The maximum discharge during the period of record was 3,680 cfs in March 1960, and the minimum was 0.1 cfs in June 1961. Average discharge for the period October 1959 to September 1963 was 54.2 cfs at station 10. Comparison of this record with records for Econlockhatchee River indicates a long-term average of 48 cfs or 0.57 cfs per square mile. Average yearly runoff is 7.7 inches. The fact that this average yield, like that of Reedy, Bonnet, and Shingle Creeks, is less than the average for the state as a whole may be attributed to the relatively larger proportion of noncontributing area in the basin. Curve No. 5 (figure 14) is the adjusted flow-duration curve for station 10. Comparison of the curve with that for station 38 shows the basins to have similar characteristics except that base flow is higher at station 10. This higher base flow may be attributed to a slightly better channel development and extensive canalization in the basin.
The water in Boggy Creek is soft, low in mineral content and high in color. At station 10 the water hardness ranged from 13 to 30 ppm, the mineral content from 29 to 73 ppm, and color from 40 to 210 units. The analytical data on water from this station indicates that most of the water is direct surface runoff. Table 8 gives the ranges in water quality for 21 analyses from November 1959 to July 1963.