LAND PRESERVATION & TRAIL BUILDING

In 1999, Durham County awarded ECWA a matching grant to purchase six acres of forest along Ellerbe Creek, downstream from Hillandale Golf Course and across the street from Indian Trails Park. ECWA closed on the property in March, 2000, and members and other interested volunteers have contributed 600 hours to build a trail and ecologically restore the property. We are giving the project a strong educational dimension, with signage that offers a self-guided tour, demonstrations of rainwater gardening, improved creekbank management and non-toxic methods of invasive plant control.

The trail offers visitors an opportunity to enjoy a nature trail experience in the city. Nearby schools have also expressed an interest in a convenient site for environmental education field trips.

A segment of the city's West Ellerbe Creek Trail now runs along the edge of the reserve, between Albany Street and Guess Road (see our Fall/2001 newsletter).

Acquisition and restoration of the reserve would not have been possible without the existence of the Durham County's Matching Grants Program.  We thank Durham County and the Durham Open Space and Trails Commission for helping spur the creation of our organization an for funding our first project.

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EDUCATION

Restoring Ellerbe Creek is an adventure that involves getting to know the watershed--not only its remaining natural assets but also the many people and businesses that call it home. It involves finding ways to reconnect with an often abused and ignored creek and make it a positive part of our lives and neighborhoods. Education is a two-way street, and is part of everything ECWA does. By monitoring water quality, volunteers learn about aquatic life. By helping with plant rescues and habitat restoration, volunteers learn about native plants and ways to use them in their own yards. Through collaborations with neighborhoods and governments, ECWA members are becoming more attuned to the perspectives and needs of residents, governmental departments and businesses. Most of all, the creek teaches us that our lives are all connected, that what we do in our yards, neighborhoods and cities affects the creek and those who live downstream.

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WATER QUALITY MONITORING

Chad Hallyburton, who works at the Museum of Life and Science, leads ECWA's water quality monitoring program. He is currently recruiting and organizing volunteers of all ages to adopt sections of the creek for monitoring. ECWA participates in a statewide program called Streamwatch, and is coordinating its efforts with the Durham Engineering Department's monitoring program. See Streamwatch for details.

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HABITAT RESTORATION

Many people assume that the plants they see growing in city parks are native. Most common tree species are, but vegetation closer to the ground is typically dominated by a host of exotic invasive plants that have displaced the natives. Japanese honeysuckle, Korean wysteria, english ivy, climbing euonymus, periwinkle, bamboo, Japanese grass (Microstegium) and a host of other invasives leave little room for native wildflowers and shrubs. These are the same plants that often turn neglected backyard woodlots into tangled jungles. Even in large, more rural parks like Eno River State Park and Umstead Park, native plants must increasingly compete with exotics for light, water and space.

At its six acre urban refuge, ECWA has begun reversing this trend, by discouraging exotics and reintroducing indigenous flora reflective of North Carolina's natural heritage. Many of these natives are being rescued from sites elsewhere in Durham scheduled for development. Vegetation along the creekbank is also being selectively managed for indigenous species.

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CREEKBANK MANAGEMENT IN DURHAM

The way vegetation is managed along city creeks influences how much erosion stormwater surges cause. Periodic bush-hogging down to bare soil can weaken root structure, making creekbanks more vulnerable to erosion. ECWA was recently given permission to demonstrate a selective approach to controlling creekbank vegetation for aesthetics, wildlife habitat and soil stabilization. We hope this demonstration will offer an aesthetic and creek-friendly alternative for Durham neighborhoods often torn between the two extremes of let-it-grow and indiscriminate bush-hogging.

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REDUCING STORMWATER RUNOFF

Key to the long-term health of Ellerbe Creek is a rethinking of the way stormwater is managed in Durham. Though the subject of stormwater does not normally pique people's interest, there is in fact no other issue that offers the individual homeowner and business person a better opportunity to contribute to improving the health of our creeks and the safety of people who live downstream. By taking responsibility for utilizing the rainwater that falls on our homes and businesses, we not only stand to make our landscaping greener during droughts, but also spare downstream creeks and residents the cumulative impact of polluted runoff from our neighborhoods.

ECWA's goal is to help homeowners, businesses and city government view rainwater as a resource, not as a burden to be passed off on downstream communities. Key to this effort is a modification of the traditional curb and drain approach to handling stormwater. Landscaping, rather than being elevated above surrounding asphalt, needs to be lower than the impervious surface, so it can receive, filter and absorb stormwater. Systems like bioretention cells, also known as rainwater gardens, are an attractive and space-efficient means of integrating stormwater control into urban landscaping. Widely adopted in Maryland's Chesapeake Bay area and endorsed by North Carolina as a Best Management Practice (BMP), bioretention cells represent a vital alternative to the status quo. At $4/square foot, they are cheaper to build than the excess parking spaces we see at strip malls.

ECWA has helped install a rainwater garden next to the Museum of Life and Science's butterfly house, and also helped install another stormwater BMP: a stormwater wetland at Hillandale Golf Course (see below).

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EXPLORING ELLERBE CREEK

As the main character in The Music Man says, you've got to know the territory. Members of ECWA have been exploring the watershed, documenting the creek's special features. There are, of course, plenty of signs of abuse: eroded creekbanks and, wherever trees have fallen across the creek downstream of the city, masses of plastic bottles and other trash.

But there are also pockets of unexpected beauty--miniature gorges, deep forests. Great blue herons and beaver dams are a common sight where the creek is buffered from development. Wild turkey and pileated woodpeckers ply its lower reaches near Falls Lake . Hawks patrol prairie openings and barred owls roost in floodplain woods, serenading nearby neighborhoods at night. Seasonal flocks of migratory birds take temporary respite during their long journeys.

There is much to preserve, and plenty of ways we can make nature more at home in the city.

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COLLABORATIONS

One of ECWA's priorities is to collaborate with state and local governments, and neighborhoods throughout the watershed, to make Ellerbe Creek an asset rather than a sometimes dangerous eyesore.

ECWA has been particularly successful at identifying potential sites in the watershed for restoration. Watershed specialists at North Carolina State Extension have taken great interest in several of these sites, and installed a stormwater wetland at Hillandale Golf Course in 1999. Funded through the Upper Neuse Non-Point Source group, it turned an eroded ditch into an attractive series of pools and shallows, planted with native wetland grasses, shrubs and wildflowers. ECWA volunteers helped put in some 2000 plants this past May.

The North Carolina Wetland Restoration Program, which is restoring streams at many sites in North Carolina, is working with Hillandale Golf Course on a plan to restore sections of Ellerbe Creek where it flows through the course.

The Museum of Life and Science has also responded positively to ECWA ideas. This past spring, ECWA provided native prairie grasses and wildflowers for planting along the Museum's Ellerbee Creek Railroad. Train right-of-ways have historically served as refuges for prairie species marginalized by agriculture and development. ECWA also brought Museum staff and NC State wetland specialists together to install a demonstration rainwater garden next to the popular Butterfly House. Built and planted in 2001 with the help of ECWA volunteers, the rainwater garden catches runoff from the roof and nearby pavement. Chad Hallyburton, a Museum employee, is currently leading youth groups and other volunteers in monitoring of water quality along the creek.

Another site that ECWA is developing ideas for is Durham's closed landfill and adjacent "borrow area". Bordering deep woods that extends to Falls Lake, the site has great potential for future passive recreation and wildlife habitat. Capped with clay, the landfill is now essentially a grassy hill with an unparalleled view of the lower Ellerbe Creek valley. Within the landfill, a system of underground pipes draw off the methane gas that landfills produce for some 20 years after closure, offering a currently untapped source of energy.

With the help of the Durham Historic Preservation Society and a city councilwoman, ECWA successfully forestalled demolition of a historic farmhouse in good structural condition that is located on city property near the landfill. The Glenn-Veasey house, historic in and of itself, is built on the probable site of the original homestead in the lower Ellerbe Creek valley. In 1999, ECWA's president discovered a diabase glade remnant bordering the city landfill property, filled with more than 60 native prairie plant species. ECWA is helping form a Citizens Landfill Advisory Committee to explore future uses for the landfill, highlighting the property's historic and natural heritage. (see Act Locally).

ECWA also participates in Big Sweep, an annual statewide effort to clean our waterways of trash.

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DEVELOPMENT WATCH

Durham has spectacularly heavy rains. When land is cleared for development, it loses its protective cover of trees and mulch and gets swept pell-mell by these downpours into the nearby creek, turning the water reddish brown with sediment and suspended clays. Methods of erosion control, mandated by the state, are often ineffective and poorly maintained.

By far, the biggest development in the Ellerbe Creek watershed is the I85 expansion. I85 stretches along the full length of the Ellerbe Creek watershed, from Cole Mill Road east to Falls Lake. Beginning in fall of 1999 and continuing for years to come, the Durham section of the interstate will be widened from four lanes to eight. At some intersections, I85 will be twelve lanes wide as it travels through the city! This phenomenal expansion and accompanying earthmoving will pollute Ellerbe Creek with silt-laden runoff, and leave a legacy of sound pollution and increased stormwater loading of the creek.

Last year, citizen monitoring of I85 construction in western Durham uncovered numerous failures of erosion control measures by DOT contractors. Since state government reportedly has only enough inspectors to visit construction sites every six months, the health of waterways is heavily dependent on citizens to monitor erosion controls and report violations.

In summer, 2001, ECWA organized a meeting of Durham environmental groups with NC-DOT engineers to discuss what measures DOT is taking to ameliorate the impacts of its construction and longterm stormwater runoff on the creek (see Fall/2001 newsletter).

ECWA is also working with the NC-DOT to make intersections along I-85 safer for bicyclists and pedestrians.

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INVASIVE PLANTS IN THE WATERSHED

Every gardener is well practiced at pulling out pesky weeds, or smothering them with thick mulch. Fewer people are aware that managers of natural areas must also contend with aggressive invasive plants. Like most weeds of the garden, the plant species currently plaguing natural areas were introduced from other continents. Kudzu is merely the most renowned example. Even more widespread in undeveloped urban lands are english ivy, wysteria, periwinkle, privet, multifloral rose and the now ubiquitous Japanese grass. Many of these can have ornamental value, but when allowed to run unchecked they pose a threat to a diverse native flora and the wildlife dependent upon it.

Japanese stilt grass, an annual in the genus Microstegium (my-cro-stée-gee-um) that also goes by the name bamboo grass, is an example of a plant that has invaded yards, flower beds and natural areas alike. Adapted to shade or sun, in a lawn it makes soft mounds that die back in the fall, creating a blotchy effect. In unmown areas, it grows from 2 to 6 feet high, climbing up over other vegetation and carpeting whole swaths of lowland woods. In the winter, it can be seen as a tangled sea of light brown in low-lying areas.

ECWA plans to emphasize non-toxic methods to control this and other invasive plants, and at the same time encourage a rich diversity of plants native to the piedmont. Plant rescue is a big component of this approach. Many urban woodlots have become so dominated by invasive exotics that native flora must be reintroduced as a part of restoration. Thus far, ECWA volunteers have retrieved more than 200 native shrubs and wildflowers from impending road construction in southeast Durham, to be planted in ECWA's urban reserve.

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