erroneously attributed this contamination to Sutton Lake in West Virginia. Some reports of a 2013 Wake Forest University study of selenium contamination in Sutton Lake in North Carolina (allegedly due to coal ash from the Sutton power plant of Duke Energy). The upper portion of the river, above Sutton Lake, is a popular coldwater trout stream. The Elk's largest tributaries are the Holly River and the Birch River, both of which join it in Braxton County.

Army Corps of Engineers concrete dam causes the Elk to form Sutton Lake. The old riverbed of solid rock, however, remains above ground in this section known as 'The Dries.' It follows a generally westward course across the unglaciated Allegheny Plateau, through Randolph, Webster, Braxton, Clay, and Kanawha Counties, past the towns of Webster Springs, Sutton, Gassaway, Clay, Clendenin, and Elkview before joining the Kanawha River at Charleston.ДЄt Sutton, a U.S. It flows above ground for several miles before it sinks into a network of caverns and flows underground for more than five miles. The Elk is formed in the Allegheny Mountains in Pocahontas County by the confluence of two short streams, the Big Spring Fork and the Old Field Fork, which join near the community of Slatyfork.

Elk river falls