March 2015 Headwater Highlights

Time To Party with the Creek Rising

It's PARTY time! Spring means the Creek is Rising. Our annual friend and fund-raiser is Thursday, April 16, from 5-8 p.m. at Zonolite Park. 

Find beauty on the banks at Creek Rising Party. Perhaps a mushroom quiche? Or a sip of Bog Water?

Tickets are limited, so reserve yours now.  Click Here for a fast purchase. 

Party chair Debra Edelson is promising Klezmer Cajun music as we explore the creek trails with food, drink and fun. 

New signposts point to the Creek  

US Fish and Wildlife scientist Kevin Lowry inspects the new posts with South Fork Board Chair Bob Kerr, right.

DeKalb County's Parks and Rec crews used skill and muscle to build new trail signposts at Zonolite Park in late March. Sign panels coming soon  will hold maps, information about the creek and  remind trail users of the contaminated dirt removed from the floodplain to restore these creekside 12 acres.  

The unique sign posts feature a colorful chevron on cedar wood; long-lasting, and reminiscent of centuries of Indian life here.  They have gaps between the cedar, allowing visitors to see through the posts to others approaching.

Emory launches Earth Month 

Honoring the Earth at Emory began March 31 with a foodie fest and a scavenger hunt. South Fork's Diane Ryu set maps and stories in front of thousands of students changing classes... and perhaps changing the earth!

Science Festival Second Year Scores

South Fork's not just nature,  you know. Last year, as a founding exhibitor for the Atlanta Science Festival, we gave tours of the creek to dozens of unbelieving Atlantans. They barely knew the creeks and all this ecology was even here.
This second year of support for the Atlanta Science Festival brought volunteer Science Festival enthusiasts to join Tom Tomaka, in plaid on the right, replanting and inspecting our native chestnut orchard.

Boy Scouts build, install bird houses at Confluence

Ashton Edmeades enlisted Robert Weimar left, Zode Compton on the ground and Alex Langan, right.  

When you next walk the Confluence trails, look for the ten new bird houses hiding along the creek. Ashton says "All ten birdhouses were constructed  from long lasting Cypress wood that will age to a silvery grey over time. After consulting on appropriate birdhouses for the area with Ms. Joy Carter, President of the Atlanta Audubon Society, we built and installed five Bluebird Houses and five Wren Houses. These houses accommodate Bluebirds, Carolina and House Wrens, Chickadees, and Tufted Titmice." For more, click here! 

How can we make our creek banks grow?

We can trust Home Depot's garden guru Marty Harris, with Eileen Clarr, to come up with great ideas for plants for perilous places. They invited South Fork's Martha Hall and Dorothy Sussman to promote trails at the Lindbergh Home Depot Garden Kickoff day March 21. About a million people saw our maps & promised help.

February 2015 Headwater Highlights

Water Walking? 

DeKalb County is readying to build a connection from one side of the South Fork of Peachtree Creek to the other near Clairmont Road.

Sketch from DeKalb plans.

Just don't call the connection a bridge. It will be stepping stones.  This week Facilities Project Manager Bob Sims reported the long-wanted crossing linking neighbors on the Superior Avenue side of the creek to the library and tennis center beyond the old Waterworks on the other side will be sent out for construction bids in March. 

Valerie Boss, leading the effort to add native plants and people to the Ira B. Melton park, broke the good news to the Medlock Area Neighborhood Association meeting Friday Feb. 14.

The group pushed the county for low-impact trails and a creek crossing to link hundreds of neighbors to Mason Mill Park.

The master plan on DeKalb's website  shows how it connects to the dog park and comfort facilities. How will this kind of crossing work?

Stones arranged as DeKalb  plans won't block the normal flow of water, and in flood, the steps will be underwater. 

Plans call for 14 3.5 to 4 foot boulders set in the creek bed, rising 6 inches above average water elevation. Gaps between the stones will be no more than 1.5 to 2 feet. Stairs on either bank will let creek lovers get to the stones without eroding the bank. 

Sims' email confirmed the stream crossing re-design is complete, and permitting approval anticipated within two weeks.

 

How do connections begin?

by Sally Sears

I gave Marianne Skeen a ride home from trail building in  Zonolite Park to her house on Superior Avenue near North Decatur Road. She stretched her limber fingers and wondered out loud "What would it be like to be able to walk to the library without having to get on Clairmont Road?  We would have to get through the privet thicket and across the creek somehow. But it could be gorgeous."

That conversation was five years ago. Today the adventurous Marianne is back from navigating the Irrawaddy River in Myanmar, and reflecting on the success of her wish. 

First she invited Conservancy volunteers to tame some of the privet in Ira B. Melton park. We partnered with the neighborhood associations, led by Valerie Boss and heavy Boy Scout involvement. Dozens of work days pruned the maze of trails to an easy to follow loop. Now a native plant entrance welcomes walkers and dogs, off road bikers and children.  And finally, DeKalb County's creek crossing, on stepping stones,  is promised to be "significantly complete" within the year. What else can Marianne Skeen ask for? We're all ears!  We think a trailhead sign and a high-quality well designed trail head is next on her list.

 

A Day On for MLK Day

Sage Hill Kroger's gone and done it again! They provided water, bananas, chips, and granola bars for our MLK volunteer day and fueled SIXTY wonderful volunteers as they restored the Meadow trail. Thanks Manager Bert Bohannan!

How many volunteers does it take to yank a meadow's worth of invading vines? The MLK Holiday found some 70 people from middle school ages on up tossing vines to return the Meadow Loop to its open habitat. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hole in the Ground where a plant used to be

Emory physics professor Jed Brody tends a sturdy new tree.

Late on MLK afternoon, somebody snatched three trees from the ground at the North and South Forks Confluence. The news stirred volunteers to action. Trees Atlanta and two dozen helpers replaced the three lost saplings with big, heavy plants, saving the 30 gallon giant beech for the very spot where the trees were lost.

John Wiley enjoyed the company of a beautifully colored Muscovy Duck for a month, at his home on the South Fork near Clairmont Road. He reports the duck hung out with mallards and a blue heron, dining on wildlife and John's cheerios.

South Fork Board Member Ruthie Taylor Norton is a Live-Work-Play fan, working in Atlanta's city office of sustainability, and playing with kayaks in whitewater everywhere in the Southeast. Last Saturday on the Chattooga she took a seven foot drop, hit a hole and broke her ankle.   We're sending fruit and best wishes for a fast recovery.

January 2015 Headwater Highlights

Getting Along Swimmingly With FISH

Dekalb County Commissioner Jeff Rader, U.S. Fish and Widlife Deputy Refuge Chief Shaun Sanchez, SFC Board Chairman Bob Kerr, SFC Executive Director Sally Sears, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife's Sallie Gentry

This time last year, we were dreaming of a U.S. Fish and Wildlife partnership. By the end of 2014, the partnership became reality when Deputy Refuge Chief Shaun Sanchez came together with Sally and Board Chairman Bob Kerr to sign a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA). We agreed to work together to engage urban communities in an effort to connect people with nature and protect and conserve the South Fork of Peachtree Creek. The regional Refuge program is underway! First on the list is a new Emory University Environmental Studies intern, Diane Ryu. Welcome to the fold Diane!

A Cleveland Ohio native, Diane studied abroad in Namibia and Botswana, igniting a passion for conservation work. She worked with wild mountain gorillas in Rwanda and focused on environmental degradation.

Welcome to Diane Ryu, our new intern!

Diane's work with the South Fork will explore urban wildlife refuges. She'll be directed by colleagues from the US Fish and Wildlife Service plus the Greening Youth Foundation.

We are beyond thrilled by this partnership and can hardly wait to see the fantastic impact it has on restoring the creek and building trails that bring us all a little closer to nature. 

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Life In An Urban Watershed
By Christine Van Roosen - volunteer

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Christine at the confluence point, next to the South Fork. It was 8-10ft higher than normal due to an extended rain event

I live just up the hill from the north fork of Peachtree Creek. In 2009, I stood on a nearby bridge looking down as the creek rushed past, spreading far outside its banks as trunks and trash came spilling downstream in a seething mass. Little did I know then that just a couple of miles downstream, houses on the creek’s floodplain were almost under water.

As a river and coastal kayaker, I’m fascinated by rivers and their courses, navigability, health, and challenges.  I’ve ranged throughout the Southeast on long kayaking trips in remote and not-so-remote areas. But I never thought about what happens to the creek in my own backyard on its journey to the Chattahoochee.

My eyes were opened on a South Fork Conservancy tour this month, just after a massive rain event. As I watched the normally lazy creek flash by at 1900 cubic feet per second (a Class 2 creek), I began to fully understand how important it is to constantly battle erosion and effectively control storm water overflows via carefully engineered technique. Structures like the “upside-down bridge” on the Confluence Trail mitigate damage in major storms like this one. I was also intrigued by the archaeological sites so close to the river, the carefully planted stands of chestnut trees and indigenous plants, the signs of beavers at work and the birding opportunities that draw avid birders to the area. It was encouraging to meet neighbors and friends of the river out and about in the damp, exploring and telling stories about river-related events. Perhaps most importantly, I was happy to learn more about my “wild” neighborhood.

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Spotting something special on the South Fork. From Left to Right: Ellen Miller, Eric Bowles, Teresa Mayes, Stella Wissner, John Mayes, Sally Sears

Winging It With The Birders

A generous round of silent applause for my friends in the Atlanta Audubon Chapter.  Generous because you shared your affection for our downy, rufous and nutty friends up and down the South Fork. Silent so we don't scare the birds. And Applause for all your tolerance for my wild binocular swings.

My first ever bird count began in a misting sunrise at Zonolite Park January 3, 2015. Four robins waited for me on a wire above the Motorcar Studio next to the Soto Zen Center. Recognizing the first birds made me dangerously confident. By noon we had  39 different species of birds, many of them brown and small. My boots were muddy  and I was chastened by how much I did NOT know.

Favorite birds? Ellen Miller our leader spotted a brown creeper. She jumped up and down. It was a species first for Stella Wissner.  Eric Bowles confirmed it circling a giant tree, like a barbershop pole twisting up the trunk.  Except the tree is brown, the bird is brown and it creeps.Three of our best birders were celebrating.

Teresa Mayes' favorite was the red-shouldered hawk. It flew out of the woods across the new meadow cleaned up from decades of asbestos contamination. American Crows heard the hawk and started protesting with loud caws. The pond held ten green Mallard Ducks, which joined the protest. The hawk sat like the king of all he surveyed and took the ruckus as applause.My favorite were a pair of Great Blue Herons. One flapped upstream toward Herbert Taylor Park. The other looked us over coolly and minced away.

"The most dangerous animal out here," said Eric Bowles, as cool as the heron. No kidding? Fatal?   "People trying to rescue an injured heron get a bill through their skull and die."   A shiver ran through my binoculars.   Yikes! The birds were here first. I'm the newcomer on the creek. Carol Bush liked the Kinglets, ruby and golden crowned. Big name, tiny bird, but lots of energy.

Bird counting at Zonolite Park

Eric Bowles kept a wildlife tally of other species. "We ended the day with 7 deer – 5 at Zonolite and 2 at Cheshire Farm.  We also saw a sleeping raccoon high in a dead tree on the Confluence Trail.   The highlight for me was at the very end of the day on the Cheshire Farm Trail.  Not 25 feet off I-85 at Lindbergh a red shouldered hawk was carrying and feeding on a pigeon – with the Cooper’s hawk that originally caught the pigeon nearby."

Now let me ask all the Atlantans who drive on Lindbergh Drive every week. That's about a hundred thousand motorists.  Do you know what's for supper on the Creek?  Alos, a final question for the Audubon tally: If two hawks are eating a pigeon, does the pigeon count? 

Final tally for the Audubon Bird Count on the South Fork on January third: 43 species, 414 birds.

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City Innovation Invites Questions From The Public

Good Idea? Atlanta city hall wants ideas to make money for the city, using park and greenspace real estate as a possible source.Mayor Reed's office wonders if ideas like Citi Bike in New York, sponsored by CitiBank, would work in Atlanta. Maybe internet hotspots sponsored by an internet provider in exchange for a large sign on an internet tower?

Park and greenspace backers and their volunteers are digesting the idea. Some see this as a great way to afford extra amenities for parks and greenspace users. Others are wary of commercializing precious green sanctuaries. What do you think?

The deadline for Information requests is Feb. 4, 2014. You can find the Request for Information form as well as additional info here

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Volunteers Lead, We Follow In 2015

The group down the many priorities into these and then assigned them to various categories

Last night, a remarkable and invested cross section of the South Fork Community gathered to help us figure out what 2015 will look like. Using 2014 as both an example and a lesson, these 14 neighbors, outdoor enthusiasts, and board members put their heads together to determine organizational priorities. They worked through four phases during the session starting with identifying priorities and ending with tasks that accomplish them.

See the picture to the right? The group closest to us, composed of (from left to right) Anita Brown, Tom Tomaka, Chris Nelson, and Diane Ryu, worked so carefully and considerately that they were always the last group to finish an activity. Further down the table you see Sally Sears, Van Hall, and Christine Van Roosen having a lively discussion about the applicability of their ideas. Martha Porter Hall, Margaret Stewart, and Paul Looper sat at the end of the table fairly discussing each and every idea in front of them (see picture below). You won’t be able to see the folks deliberating from the comfy couches in the living room. Rich Sussman, Bob Scott, Barbara Baggerman, and Dave Kaufman’s discussions were full of jokes and laughter and they got the job done in comfort and style.

Margaret Stewart holding a priority her group was discussing

So what did they decide? In first place, Outreach- get the word out so more people will volunteer and support this vision. 2nd Place, Trail Maintenance- keep those trails clean, open, and walkable. Third, continue working to restore native plants and eradicate invasive plants. Finally, capital improvements, like signs and bike racks, are highly desired along the trail.

Now, we hand off not one, but 14 torches to these wonderful volunteers and work with them as they lead many of these events and outreach efforts, accomplishing tasks they themselves identified in the visioning session. We can see the path glowing brightly ahead. Can you?