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News
August, 2008
Dear Friends of Bolin Creek
The past year has been a memorable one in many ways for the Friends Bolin Creek. We talk about those events and what is ahead in this special edition email letter.
1. Townsend-Bertram Fund-raiser
2. Walks and Talks
3. EPA Grants Benefit Bolin Creek
4. Bolin Creek Festival
5. Preservation efforts
6. CN Forestry Management Program
7. Adams Preserve
8. Protecting Water Quality
9. In Memorium: Paul Debreczeny
1. Townsend-Bertram Fund-raiser. Townsend-Bertram & Co: Adventure Outfitters have long been enthusiastic benefactors of the Friends of Bolin Creek. A gala 20th Anniversary Celebration will be held at the store in Carr Mill Mall on Saturday, September 20. There will be live music by Big Fat Gap at 3pm and a raffle to benefit the Friends of Bolin Creek and Haw River Assembly at 5pm. Tickets are $5 ea. Prizes worth $5,000 will be given away including one $500 and two $250 TB&C gift certificates as well as prizes from Osprey, Patagonia, KEEN, Chaco, TEVA, Timbuk2 and more.
Since we have the exciting prospect of acquiring important habitat along Bolin Creek, fund-raising is a significant priority this year. We are very grateful to Townsend-Bertram for including us in their 20th Anniversary Celebration and for kicking off our fund-raising efforts in a very dramatic way!! Join us at Townsend-Bertram on September 20th for an opportunity to win valuable prizes, raise funds, and have a great time!
2. Walks and Talks. We are organizing a series of Bolin Creek walks for the fall. The first will be a mushroom walk on Saturday, September 6, starting from Wilson Park at 10am. We are fortunate to have Dave Cook, founder of our group and author of “The Piedment Almanac” and “Reservation Nation” as leader of this walk. Ken Moore, author of the fascinating “Flora” column in the Carrboro Citizen, will lead a “Follow the Foliage” walk on October 25. Future walks will include a Geo-hike with Rob Greenberg, a Carolina North orientation walk, and a bird walk with the New Hope Audubon Society. Further details will be posted on our website, www.bolincreek.org.
Several walks were held earlier this year including a New Year’s Day hike which drew an enthusiastic crowd, a wildflower walk in April, and a History and Culture walk with the Preservation Society of Chapel Hill in May. In this case, Debbie Rigdon provided an informative account of the Adams Preserve including the colonial history of the Weaver House, a tavern on the old Chapel Hill-Hillsborough Road, and Edison Adams, an eminent mid-20th century UNC botanist, after whom the Preserve is named. The group walked upstream as far as the old mill site, built by William Castlebury ca 1765, where they herd the colorful legend of Buck Taylor, the first steward hired by the University of North Carolina, who is remembered more for his drinking exploits than culinary skills. We look forward to repeating this walk next spring.
The Friends of Bolin Creek are often invited by community groups to talk about our program. During the past year, presentations were made at the Smith Middle School Science Night, the Chapel Hill Camera Club, the Seymour Senior Center, the Preservation Society of Chapel Hill and the Carrboro Garden Club. These presentations provide important outreach to recruit members and communicate our mission.
3. EPA Grants benefit Bolin Creek. Bolin Creek was declared an impaired stream by the state in 1998. The towns of Chapel Hill and Carrboro received a grant this year from EPA to begin repairing the damage resulting from intense urban development in the Bolin Creek corridor. The Towns are inviting citizens to get involved in stream mitigation planning. Julie McClintock is heading up a team to work with and advise the Towns. If you want to participate in the Stream Mitigation Project, please contact Julie at 919-967-3661 or mcclintock.julie@mindspring.com.
4. Bolin Creek Festival. The Fifth Annual Bolin Creek Festival will be held from 11am - 5pm on Saturday, October 4, at Umstead Park in Chapel Hill. We are excited this year to be coordinating the festival with Big Sweep, a state-wide effort to clean-up creeks and rivers. Wendy Smith from the Chapel Hill Storm-water Office, the local Big Sweep coordinator, will deploy teams in the morning to collect trash from Booker, Bolin and Morgan Creeks. We are starting the festival earlier this year to accommodate teams returning to Umstead Park after clean-up activities.
The program will again include an exciting music program including Club Boheme (retro jazz with vocal pizzazz) and Skeedaddle (Americana roots string band); a variety of activities for children including stream watch, the hands-on Enviroscape, and rhythm circles by the Music Explorium; information tables by Conservation organizations; delicious Indian food by Vimila and smoothies by Randy Dodd; and completion of a pastel masterpiece by Dale Morgan, our Artist-in-Residence. Dale paints charming watercolors of native birds, bugs, amphibians, reptiles and mammals. A raffle will be held for this picture and other prizes. Join us at Umstead Park on October 4 for a memorable afternoon of fun, food, entertainment, education and celebration for the whole family!
Additional help is needed to prepare for the festival. If you are interested in assisting with publicity, organizing the raffle or silent auction, manning our table, or helping on the day of the festival, contact Dave Otto at 929-9645 or davidaotto@earthlink.net.
5. Preservation efforts. An exciting and significant development this summer was the announcement by P. H. Craig that he wants to partner with the Town of Carrboro and the Friends of Bolin Creek in preserving part of his Bolin Creek property. Mr. Craig owns considerable land along the creek between Ironwoods and Carolina North across from the Adams Preserve. A tributary, flows across the property, forming a deep and scenic ravine before it joins Bolin Creek near the foot of Pathway Drive. Groves of old beech trees grace the top of hills on either side of the ravine and granite cliffs rise on the west side. Spring wildflowers flank the tributary and brighten the walls of the ravine.
Although this property does not yet appear on any maps, local hikers, bikers, joggers and nature lovers have known about this recreational resource for generations. Mr. Craig loves this land and has generously allowed the public to use it for recreational purposes in past years. He has zealously turned away offers to purchase the property over the years. We look forward to working with Carrboro and the County in helping Mr. Craig realize his dream of preserving this land for future generations to enjoy.
6. Carolina North Forestry Management Program. In 2007 UNC hired Greg Kopsch and Jerry McGovern to manage the undeveloped portions of Carolina North. The mission of the forest managers is to protect the woodlands, improve trails and encourage recreational use. Greg and Jerry undertook their work with enormous energy, enthusiasm and have established a very cordial and productive relationship with the user community. Initial efforts included GIS mapping of trails, installation of signs and information kiosks, and marking property lines.
A Carolina North Trails and Forestry Advisory Committee, chaired by Tony Waldrop, was also created with representatives of UNC and the community. Dave Otto represents FoBC on this committee. Activities of forest managers are reviewed at these meetings and suggestions are solicited from members.
In order to assess and improve trails for the use of hikers, runners and bikers, a Memorandum of Understanding between UNC and Stewart Bryant, president of the Triangle Off-Road Cyclists, was signed. Bryant is a trained, accredited and experienced trail builder. A series of workdays have been held with extensive participation of volunteers--runners and mountain bikers who are the primary users of the trails.
The TrailHeads, a group of dedicated runners and mountain bikers who use CN trails extensively. organized an extremely successful Philosopher’s Way Trail Run on May 31. More than 300 runners participated in this event. A series of charettes were held during the summer to solicit input from runners and bikers concerning the design and improvement of trails. The TrailHeads have also been holding orientation runs to acquaint newcomers to the network of CN trails.
News and a schedule of CN activities are posted on the website: www.fac.unc.edu/Campus/CarolinaNorth/CarolinaNorthNews.
Trail workdays and runs organized by the Trail-Heads are scheduled periodically. FoBC and volunteers from the Human Studis Division of EPA partnered with UNC for an Earth Day Invasives Removal Workday on April 22. Friends of Bolin Creek are invited to participate in workdays and events at CN and to visit the website for information about future activities.
7. Adams Preserve. The Town of Carrboro partnered with the County to purchase a 27-acre tract from the Adams Family in 2004. The Friends of Bolin Creek enthusiastically supported this acquisition as the first significant piece in the Bolin Creek Park and Preserve that we envision. This property, which we refer to as the Adams Preserve, links Wilson Park and Bolin Creek and thus serves as an important gateway to the proposed greenway and park. The large parking lot at Wilson Park also serves as an excellent staging area for hikes.
Although the Adams Preserve is part of the Carrboro park system, the Recreation and Parks Department does not have sufficient resources to maintain the property. This function was delegated to the Carrboro Public Works Department (CPWD). One of the first tasks assigned to CPWD was to close the steep and badly eroded trail from the top of the bluff to the creek and to build a new trail to the creek. CPWD installed sturdy wooden fences to close off the original trail and then cut new trail across the top of the bluff with a section running straight down to the creek at the western edge of the preserve.
It was clear from this effort that CPWD lacked the knowledge and experience to build sustainable trails. The new descent to the creek was poorly designed and as prone to erosion as the original. Stewart Bryant pointed out this error and volunteered to correct the problem. We similarly reported the erosion problem. Water bars were subsequently installed which do little to stop erosion. We will continue to encourage the Carrboro Town Board and staff to correct this problem..
On the positive side, CPWD has partnered with us and USEPA in an Earth Day Invasives Removal Workday along the old coach road leading from Estes Drive to the historic Weaver House. Thanks to the efforts of Randy Dodd, we were also responsible for creating the historical signage at the entrance from Wilson Park and tree names throughout the preserve. One of our goals during the coming year is to forge a stronger partnership with the Carrboro Recreation and Parks and Public Works Departments to facilitate usage by the community.
8. Protecting water quality in our streams. Several efforts are underway to improve the health of local streams including Bolin Creek. We will work with the Town and interested citizens to improve land use planning, including low impact design and less harmful sewer installation by OWASA to sewer new development. We will continue to monitor storm water practices of developers as we have in the past for Winmore and Claremont and to review development plans presented to the Town. If you are interested in watching town meeting or attending them to help us track new development requests, please let us know by replying to this email at mcclintock.julie@mindspring.com.
9. In Memorium: Paul Debreczeny. We were saddened in March to lose our beloved Treasurer, Paul Debreczeny, after an extended illness. Paul Debreczeny, a Distinguished Professor of Russian Literature, was a kind and gentle man with a passionate love of nature, particularly Bolin Creek. Paul served as our treasurer for the past three years and we are very grateful for his dedicated service. However, he contributed much more than fiscal management. Paul was an ardent supporter of the Friends, volunteering frequently to man our table at festivals and fairs, advocating strongly for replacing invasive species with native plants, and encouraging the steering committee in all its efforts to preserve the Bolin Creek Corridor. His enthusiasm, wisdom and kindness will be sorely missed. The Friends of Bolin Creek will plant one or more native trees in his memory along the Chapel Hill Greenway. Contributions for his memorial can be mailed to the Friends of Bolin Creek, P.O. Box 234, Carrboro, NC 27510.
Share your thoughts with us!! The past year has been very busy and the next year promises to be one of the most exciting in the history of the Friends of Bolin Creek!! As we move forward, we are interested in your thoughts on how best to realize our goal of preserving Bolin Creek and adjacent woodlands. Please send your questions, suggestions and ideas to Dave or Julie (see below). We look forward to your response and support!
See you at the fund-raiser on September 20 and the festival on October 4!!
Dave Otto and Julie McClintock, Co Chairs
Friends of Bolin Creek
davidaotto@earthlink.net or 919-929-9645 mcclintock.julie@mindspring.com or 919-967-3661
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