Ellerbee? Ellerbe? Either way, it's dirty - Big cleanup effort scheduled for creek

Ellerbee Creek, a stream that runs through the heart of Durham, is getting regular clean-up days this spring. The body of water has two separate associations looking after its well-being.
Staff Photo by Shawn Rocco

From the high ground off Shocoree Drive to the floodplains at Falls Lake, Ellerbee (or "Ellerbe") Creek is only about 12 miles long, but it drains almost 37 square miles of Durham.

It's polluted and "impaired" as a home for aquatic life, but since 1999, its environs have gained three nature preserves. It has not just one but two citizens' organizations attending its rehabilitation -- each, today being Earth Day, at work this morning starting at 9. Helpers welcome.

• The Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association and Friends of South Ellerbe Creek are cleaning up Walltown Park, where one of the creek's branches flows under Guess Road;
• The Watershed Association is holding a cleanup and eradication of invasive garlic mustard along another branch, in its Pearl Mill Preserve off Green Street.

Those groups have had "a huge positive impact on the health of the creek," said Laura Webb Smith of the city Stormwater Services division, in terms of hands-on labor and public education. Nevertheless, they have a big job.

"It's got a pretty dense population," said Diana Tetens, the Watershed Association's executive director.

The main stream originates from springs in western Durham. It runs under Interstate 85 and U.S. 15-501, through Hillandale Golf Course, past North Pointe shopping center and under Duke Street before passing Edison Johnson Recreation Center and the Museum of Life and Science and flowing through Northgate Park.

In a wooded area across Club Boulevard, that main stream meets twin-branched South Ellerbee Creek. The western branch rises near Greystone Baptist Church and runs through Old West Durham and Walltown, and under Northgate Mall; the eastern branch drains downtown, running through and below Durham Central Park, under the Durham Athletic Park, through the Trinity and Duke Park neighborhoods.

"It's among the most polluted streams in the state," said John Schelp, one of the South Ellerbe group's founders.

Beyond the confluence, Ellerbee Creek runs under the I-85/Roxboro Road/Avondale Drive interchange, past the abandoned KMart and a large pond marsh, then northeast past a sewage plant and landfill and into Falls Lake just east of Red Mill Road.

The state's water-quality office designates the creek "303(d)," meaning it is not up to snuff, for "impaired biological integrity" -- probably due to urban runoff. A 2006 state report also found fecal coliform bacteria in its water.

"How is the health? Not good," Tetens said. But, "our activity has resulted in the creek being better than it would be."

Among that activity has been building a golf-course wetland to slow and filter runoff, cleanups and native-plant restoration, and conducting nature hikes.

ECWA also has acquired and developed three preserves: the "17-Acre Wood" between Indian Trail and Westover city parks in the Watts-Hillandale area; Pearl Mill, along the greenway touching Trinity Park, Duke Park and Old North Durham; and Glennstone, an 83-acre tract adjacent to a Glenn Road subdivision.

Both ECWA and the South Ellerbe Friends were formed about eight years ago. The former is an incorporated nonprofit, and the latter is an informal association of Old West Durham, Walltown, Duke University and Ninth Street interests and fellow eco-travelers.

"A stream cleanup is never done," Schelp said; but he, like Tetens, has some accomplishments to mention.

"Our first success was to give the creek back its name," he said, "and to tell the story of the creek. A lot of folks don't know where it comes from and where it goes."

Schelp has written a historical essay on the creek, "The Pretty Rivulet" -- a title taken from explorer John Lawson, who passed through the future area of Durham in 1701 and may have been referring to the stream. (Or not -- opinions vary and evidence is scant.)

One of the Ellerbee's feeders rises near Bennett Place, site of the largest Confederate surrender in the Civil War; the main stream flows below Duke Homestead; and other branches through the remains of cotton-mill villages. In times past, according to historian David Southern, dams along the creek powered at least 10 gristmills.

"You think about who lived along the creek," Schelp said, "you know, it's the history of Durham."

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Dan Read drags a tarp full of cut underbrush from an area of the Pearl Mill Nature Preserve along the Durham Open Space and Trails off Green Street on Saturday.
The Herald-Sun/Mark Dolejs

About a dozen volunteers spent their Saturday morning weeding the banks of one of Durham's most polluted streams, in hopes that the effort will give native species of plants and animals a better chance to flourish.

The volunteers from the Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association concentrated on a three-acre piece of association-owned property between Green Street and West Markham Avenue called the Pearl Mill Nature Preserve.

It is one of several preserves the association tends in the hope that, with better care, the plants can help filter pollutants from the rainwater runoff that reaches the stream, said Kim Curtis, the group's vice president.

"Pearl Mill used to be Duke Power land," Curtis said, but the company donated it to the association about a year ago.

Saturday's weeding targeted several species of so-called "exotic invasives," plants imported to North Carolina that are so prolific that they shut out native species.

Kudzu is the most famous invasive, but Saturday's work targeted lesser-known species like privet, an import from China and Japan brought here in the 1920s. "It's everywhere," Curtis said, waving at the preserve.

Volunteers from the association have weeded the Pearl Mill preserve six or seven times since its donation, and have also installed a small kiosk along Green Street where a greenway that parallels the creek crosses the road.

Curtis said the group had to repeat the weeding process regularly because it couldn't be sure of killing off the targeted plants. The association has gotten little help from the city, save for a couple of brush pick-ups.

Ellerbe Creek feeds into Falls Lake, the drinking water supply for the city of Raleigh. State regulators list it as an "impaired" stream, which means the water in it doesn't meet federal purity standards. There are six such streams in the city.

The Pearl Mill preserve lies along a branch of the creek that used to drain a mill of the same name, Curtis said. The main source of pollution now is rainwater runoff, which picks up oil, pesticides and other chemicals from streets and yards.

COPYRIGHT 2007 by The Durham Herald Company. All rights reserved.

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With the generous donation of three acres of land by the Duke Energy Corporation, the Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association is delighted to announce the creation of its third urban nature preserve in Durham. Located along the East Branch of the South Ellerbe Creek, the land is part of a corridor of wetlands and floodplain woods bounded by the Trinity Park and Old North Durham neighborhoods. The preserve will provide a point of ecological and aesthetic interest along the popular South Ellerbee Creek Trail, just south of Green Street.

ECWA and Duke Power, a Duke Energy Company, see this land transfer as a win-win, and an asset for the bordering neighborhoods and trail users. Responding to strong neighborhood interest in the corridor voiced at a Greenway Community Forum two years ago, ECWA’s founder Stephen Hiltner has nursed the acquisition to fruition.

Duke Power has been supportive throughout, and in addition to donating the property is also covering all transaction costs. Duke Power spokesperson Davis Montgomery states, "Environmental stewardship is one of Duke Power's core values and we are pleased to be a partner with Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association in this project."

Restoration and education efforts are being led by ECWA Board Member and Trinity Park resident Kim Curtis, who is organizing the first community workday on the property this coming Saturday. Kim states, “ECWA’s initial plan for the land is to restore the native plant ecology and to make a nature trail for the community. We want this to become a destination of sorts, a place for the community to find nature in the city.”

To hear directly from those likely to frequent the nature preserve ECWA recently held a meeting with its membership and neighbors living around the new nature preserve to solicit input on issues, concerns and opportunities related to the new preserve. There was no shortage of ideas that were brought forth at the meeting, including, “eradication of invasive plants; creation of nature trails; building an observation platform over a wetland area; cultivating flowers along the greenway; building a kiosk to post greenway ecological news in both English and Spanish; need for garbage cans; places to access the creek from the greenway trail; concerns with erosion; mowing and safety.”

ECWA now owns and maintains over 100 acres of greenspace in Durham, including its 17 Acre Wood preserve between Maryland Avenue and Albany Street and the 82 acre Glennstone Nature Preserve off of Glenn Road. ECWA has successfully demonstrated that by building nature trails along the city’s West Ellerbee Creek Trail greenway and beautifying the surrounding property with native flowers and shrubs more people are drawn to the greenway. City Councilman Mike Woodard stated, “As an avid supporter of green space in our urban neighborhoods, I am extremely pleased that Duke Power donated this parcel to the Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association. The donation is proof of Duke Power's role as a good corporate citizen of Durham and the company's recognition of ECWA as one of our community's leading environmental stewards. My family and I look forward to spending time at the preserve.”

ECWA’s new Executive Director Diana Tetens, stated “I believe the more people are walking, biking and hiking along the city greenways and on adjacent preserve lands the more people feel secure in using the greenways. This allows individuals to exercise close to their homes, interact with their neighbors and most importantly builds community.”

ECWA will hold its first community workday this Saturday, February 25th (10:00 – 1:00) to begin to clear out the invasive plants in the first stage of restoration. To take part, meet at the greenway between Green and Markham Streets. Many individual worked hard to make this land transfer happen. A special thanks goes to land appraiser David Smith, who kindly donated his services.

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'A little bit of an experiment' leads to an agreement between a developer and a Durham environmental group

DURHAM -- A developer has donated 83 acres in eastern Durham to an environmental group for a nature preserve. The donation marries Cimarron Homes and the Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association, groups whose interests might normally put them at odds. The Durham homebuilder also donated an $11,000 endowment so the association can maintain trails throughout the preserve, which will be home for quail, woodcock and other grassland birds.

The land abuts Cimarron's Glennstone development, a planned 200-home community. The developer and environmentalists talked about a land donation for more than a year, said Craig Morrison, who owns the company and the subsidiary that donated the land.

"I can't say it was an easy decision," he said. "I guess for us, it's a little bit of an experiment."

Cimarron has finished the first 55 homes of the development and has started work on the next 23-lot phase. Morrison said the decision to donate is a good one, and if the residents of Glennstone interact eventually with the preserve and learn from the society members, it will be an even better one.

The nature trails will be open to residents of the development and the 200 or so members of the Ellerbe Creek association. Steve Hiltner, executive director of the association, said the public will be invited on nature walks.

"This is really, I guess, a shining example of how we've been able to work with a developer in a positive way to improve the quality of life for people as well as the wildlife," Hiltner said.

The land borders Army Corps of Engineers property along Ellerbe Creek off Glenn Road. Hiltner and Morrison said the donated land is near the city's planned Ellerbe Creek Trail.

They hope someday that the two preserves might be joined.

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DURHAM -- City of Durham officials reported that about 50,000 gallons of partially treated wastewater overflowed and spilled into Ellerbe Creek at the North Durham Water Reclamation Facility on Club Boulevard early Saturday.

Plant staff discovered the overflow at 8 a.m. and immediately took steps to identify the problem and return the plant to normal operations, according to a release from the city. The cause was determined to be a computer system at the plant that failed at approximately 2 a.m., causing failure of an in-plant pump station and alarm system, according to the release. With the alarm systems malfunctioning, the tanks served by the pump station overfilled and overflowed, the release stated.

Plant personnel responded immediately to restore the pump station to service and the facility returned to normal operations, the release stated. Additional operations and maintenance personnel reacted quickly to contain the overflow, repair the damaged equipment and prevent adverse environmental impacts, according to the release. No environmental damage was detected, the release stated. City personnel will perform additional monitoring and analyses on Ellerbe Creek for the next several days. In accordance with regulations, state personnel were notified of the spill, and the actions taken to correct the situation, the release stated.

For additional information, call William W. Telford, superintendent of the North Durham Water Reclamation Facility, at 560-4384.

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Steve Hiltner is passionate about native plants. Trained as a botanist, he worked on plant inventories and prairie restorations in Ann Arbor, Mich., before moving with his family to Durham, N.C., in 1995.

When Steve moved, he brought his enthusiasm for restoring urban spaces and saving native plants with him. By chance, his new home was just a few blocks away from Indian Trails Park. Like most parks in Durham, Indian Trails was dominated by trees and turf grass. There were few native wildflowers. "You'd have to go to a botanical garden or out into the wild to see native wildflowers and grasses," says Steve "They've really been marginalized in the city."

Being new to the area, his first task was to learn about the native plants of the Piedmont Region. Steve spent time at Duke University's Blomquist Gardens and the North Carolina Botanical Garden identifying native species. Once he had the knowledge, Steve approached the city about reintroducing native plants into the park. The city agreed as long as he'd do the work. The first summer Steve was a one man bucket brigade trying to keep the newly planted natives alive. Noting that the plants growing in drainage areas fared the best during the drought he decided to concentrate his efforts on restoring those wet areas with native species.

Steve's first garden was a 50- by 15-foot drainage ditch area that he transformed into a native plant habitat. Since it had high visibility right next to the playground, many park users could enjoy the flowers. "Not only would people enjoy the flowers, but birds and butterflies would frequent the area too," he says. "We started to recreate a natural habitat," he adds. Steve helped create four other wetland gardens in the park, then set his sights on a nearby abandoned woods.

Across the street from Indian Trails Park was a little-noticed, 17-acre woodland corridor along an urban creek. It was a jumbled mass of invasive species such as Chinese wisteria. In 1999, Steve helped found the Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association to restore this area to a native habitat. With the help of other neighborhood volunteers, landowners, and Durham County grants, the Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association purchased the land. The city already had plans to build a paved trail through this corridor connecting two neighborhoods. Instead of planting the traditional fescue grass along the trail, Steve and his association convinced the city to let them restore the trailsides to native plants. Now more than 90 species of native plants and flowers adorn the trail and the visitors include butterflies, birds, and other animals. "It's so rare to see nature in abundance in the city," says Steve. "We put up signs identifying the plants and we hold seasonal plant and bird walks," he says.

The wildflowers and other native plants along Ellerbe Creek are transforming for people as well as wildlife. "One man on business from Birmingham, Al., staying in a local hotel happened to take a walk on the trail one morning," said Steve. "He was so struck by the beauty and thoughtfulness of what we had done that he has decided to volunteer in Birmingham to help create a similar creek-side trail there."

Steve is now working with the city of Durham to identify other urban areas where native plants can be reintroduced. He's making a difference in his community and creatures of all kinds -- four-footed, winged and warty -- are thankful!

For more information about Steve's project, visit www.ellerbecreek.org.

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Unearthing Fish Dam Road
NCSSM students seek route of long-abandoned Indian trail

Through briars and bamboo, up ridges and over gullies, along city streets, country lanes and the memories of old timers, a long-abandoned road is coming into a new light.

For the last eight days, 23 students of the N.C. School of Science & Mathematics, along with their teacher and a handful of grown-up fellow travelers, have been seeking out the route and stories of Fish Dam Road.

"You guys will find this road where people never knew it existed," art teacher Joe Liles told the class at the outset. "You guys will be doing historical research on this road. Nobody's ever done research on this thing before."

Originally an Indian trail, Fish Dam Road ran west from the Neuse River to Occoneechee Town on the Eno at present Hillsborough. European settlers adapted it for horse-and-wagon traffic. Around 1930, some parts of the road were rerouted and paved, some incorporated into city streets, and much of it left for time and nature to fill in and overgrow.

"This is real detective work," said Liles.

The class is a "mini-term" school project that began March 5 and finishes Monday afternoon with a public reception in Science & Math's Student Center. The students are working with old maps, recording latitude and longitude points, making photos, recording family trees, sampling flora and soil and otherwise collecting data on the road and people who traveled and lived along it.

"I was interested in it when they mentioned it being an old Native American trail," said Nina Martinez from Wake County, who gave her ancestry as black-Haliwa-Cherokee-Mexican-Yaqui and Apache. "I'm very interested in painting, and I looked at it as a way to do that."

"It's a lot of fun; I like being in nature," said Mary Oxendine, from Fairmont.

Starting March 5 at the Cheek Road bridge over Falls Lake, Liles and his class found a segment of the old road, running down to a ford on the Granville County side about half a mile through the woods from the modern highway. On their next outing, they picked up the trail on the Durham County side and traced it to its junction with present Redwood Road, then through more woods to its ford on Ellerbee Creek.

Since then, they have traced the route along Hamlin Road, past Catsburg and behind Duke's Chapel United Methodist Church, along Wisteria Avenue to Carver Street, through Croasdaile, down Berini Drive and Howe Street to an abandoned quarry on the Eno River and then up to Pleasant Green Road. At some points, the road vanishes from sight; at others, it's a clear gouge in the earth, about 20 feet wide with high berms on either side.

The students have also spent time with folks such as Scott Harkey, 88, who talked about hauling lumber along the road, and the "tough pill" he had to swallow when 500 acres of his land were taken for Falls Lake; cousins Fran Thompson and Marion Sands, sixth-generation residents along the Fish Dam route; and John Scarlett, whose grandfather was a slave on land the family has owned for 150 years.

Along the way, they've also encountered wild ginger, rattlesnake plantain, turtle shells, deer skulls, general litter and the fine (and sharp) points of smilax and wild roses.

Liles said the idea for the class came from Don Moffett, a neighbor who happens to be president of the Eno River Association and plans to use the Fish Dam project for the 2005 Eno River Calendar. And he said he thinks the students have got "in touch with the spirit of this road."

"Now, instead of reacting with typical teenage boredom, they're excited every time we find this road," he said.

"The whole process of recovering it, and how to point it out in the woods, even if it looks just like a little trough, it's actually a road - it's pretty amazing," said Oxendine. "It would be un-obvious to someone that didn't know what they're looking at, but to us it's like, Wow! There's a road there!"

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