waterways « Raleigh Nature

August 9, 2010

Marsh Creek Park – no relation to the creek!

Filed under: Greenways & Parks, Invasive Species, Nature Lore, Northeast Raleigh, waterways — Tags: kudzu, microstegia, wildflowers, Marsh Creek Park — raleighnaturalist @ 10:09 pm

My Google search hits revealed someone looking for Marsh Creek Park, and having featured the creek, I thought we should visit the recently expanded park on New Hope Road. The name of the park derives from Marsh Creek Road, which begins just across New Hope and goes straight down to Marsh Creek. But New Hope Road is a ridge between the Crabtree and Neuse watersheds, and the waterways in the park itself- mostly out of sight without hiking – head north through a large woodlot visible from Southall Road toward the Neuse, just a mile distant.

All pictures click to enlarge

The hot new feature in the park is the skate park, which was featured in a several media articles and is quite popular. The large recreational center is fairly nondescript, but was constructed with green principles, as described in detail (along with other park amenities) at Get To Know a Park. Beside the center is a large Piedmont prairie, and the extensive parking areas are adjoined by interesting ecotone areas, though the stilt grass is spreading fast. The terrain is typical of Piedmont farmland after 50-60 years – upland pines and chestnut oaks with a slope down to loblollies, shrubs, and water.

My favorite find at Marsh Creek Park was the rain garden just below the skate park, with a wonderful stand of Joe-Pye-weed, as seen below. I’ve only seen this handsome plant in the mountains, but it is listed in the Piedmont. Somebody did a great job with this rain garden.

To make the park’s name issue a little stranger, there is a really nice marshy area below the lower field, which leads to a very pretty old farm pond. It appears to have a fishing shack on the edge. The expansion doubled the usable space of the park, but most of the acreage is still heavily wooded and ripe for exploring. Overall, a versatile park with something for everyone.

photo album of Marsh Creek Park

Google map of Marsh Creek Park

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This section of Raleigh – the ridge of New Hope with the valley of the Neuse to the northeast and Marsh Creek’s drainage to the southwest – is of geologic interest because it is one of the transitions between the Piedmont and the Coastal Plain. If you take Buffalo Road off New Hope, for example, you immediately start seeing sandy soils. Just down the road from Marsh Creek Park, Skycrest Drive heads down to good old Raleigh Swamp. Before it gets there, at the intersection with Trawick, you can find this meadow of wildflowers. It is being sorely threatened by kudzu vines. We will keep a closer eye on invasive species in our future nature travels.

The kudzu is right behind the dandelions.

An impressive array of wildflowers fronts the dandelions by a slope.

These blackberry flowers are beside Skycrest. This was in May, but this summer I picked almost ten quarts of these things! They are everywhere.

Kudzu making its way toward the wildflowers.

Kudzu go’ne eat us all!!

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April 12, 2010

Pigeon House Re-Hab Project Helps Edna Metz Wells Park

Filed under: Central Raleigh, Greenways & Parks, green initiatives, waterways — Tags: Pigeon House Branch, daylighting creeks, Edna Metz Wells Park — raleighnaturalist @ 12:30 am

A wonderful piece of graffiti has garnered some media attention for the stream restoration project along Smallwood Drive just below Cameron Village. Cameron Village was the first shopping center in the Southeast, and when Willie York built it he diverted, ditched and straightened the headswaters of Pigeon House Branch, which gather between Cameron Village and the Raleigh Apartments. The creek takes a straight shot right under Clarke Avenue into Edna Metz Wells Park, and after heavy rains the water, which gathers from a large section of the Oberlin Road ridge of Civil War fame, would roar through the tiny park, eroding and scouring and backwashing debris into the tributary water piped down from the glade along Forest Street above the park. The City of Raleigh is working on a general rehabilitation plan for Pigeon House Branch, and the Smallwood project, which is pretty much finished, is part of that. Apparently they are going to remove some invasive species before doing final plantings, both on Smallwood and in Edna Metz, in the fall.

From the main approach, the park looks beseiged.. But as you will see below, in the interior, all is well. This spot is a real haven in Central Raleigh, and was a mainstay for my young children and me in the nineties.

The Smallwood St. project involved using large boulders and some nice terraces to slow down and complicate the path of the water.

The media interest, started by a nice post from Goodnight, Raleigh, centers on a graffiti portrait of Edie Sedgewick, Andy Warhol’s muse, painted on the culvert where Pigeon House enters Edna Metz. My picture of the scene is below.

Josh Shaffer called me and asked about the construction and Ena Metz, but never specifically mentioned the graffiti. I’m pretty sure they won’t scrape it off as part of the re-hab project, but I can’t really say for sure. Hope not. It is indeed a nice harmless piece of art. The figure says “De,” which is the word for power in Taoist philosophy. I appreciate Josh’s feature of it and the park, as well as his kind words for my work. And thanks as always to John Morris and his compadres over at another of Raleigh’s “splendid blogs!”

Goodnight ,Raleigh post on Edna Metz Wells Park

photo album of Edna Metz and Smallwood project

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December 8, 2009

Lassiter Mill Shows Crabtree at Strength

Filed under: Crabtree Creek, Geographic Areas, Nature Lore, Raleigh mills, waterways — Tags: Lassiter Mill, geology, Crabtree Creek, floodplains, wetlands — raleighnaturalist @ 2:38 am

The previous post talked about Crabtree Creek’s tendency to flood – last week again brought heavy rains over the Crabtree watershed that brought the creek up to the edge of its large channels. This also sends an impressive load of water over Lassiter Mill Dam, as seen above. I shot a video clip of the rushing water from below the tailrace, as linked below.

video- Lassiter Mill dam at high water

What happens at Lassiter Mill vividily and intensely demonstrates what happens lots of places more gradually – the deposition of new soil by spreading flood waters. This is an essential part of the natural systems of the Piedmont, and our flood control measures prevent the process from periodically enriching the soil with a layer of mud and silt – though the process continues to work just fine in the “waste” lowlands that remain in Raleigh. An astounding number of these lowlands have become major thoroughfares – roads built relatively later in Raleigh’s long history, on land left undeveloped due to the floodplain. The Beltline follows the low contours of Walnut Creek, House Creek, Crabtree Creek, Big Branch, Marsh Creek and then Walnut Creek quite precisely as it curves from Cary’s Buck Jones to Glenwood, over the crest of North Hills, and around southeast to Poole Rd and then Lake Wheeler Road. The water is piped and rushed away from underneath these elevated roadways, carrying its minerals with it.

The suburbs and businesses near these roads certainly don’t need the sediments! But the stuff has to go somewhere, and these days there is a lot of stuff. When streams are buffered by a healthy band of water-loving trees and shrubs, erosion material is reduced greatly. In central Raleigh, Crabtree is clogged with lots of dislodged soil, construction materials and unnaturally exposed red clay. But the deposition process is a vital one, and it gets exaggerated at Lassiter Mill, where the water brings its load of suspended minerals hurtling over the dam and then slows and spreads its course below. As it slows, it drops much of its sediment load. The area below Lassiter Mill changes yearly as the creek alternately erodes and builds up materials. Check out the new load of sand deposited by the recent high waters.

There are several caveats and complications to consider. This is a large load of sand! Eight or nine inches at a dose, and not the silt and mud that the plants would prefer. But nature adapts, and the Lassiter “beach” is fun to browse, with a wide variety of weeds incubated from the loads of soil and debris. The silt and sand that currently washes down Crabtree is terribly unhealthy for the filtering mussels and other delicate aquatic life. The red clay that paints Crabtree brown is such a strong pigment that Crabtree often changes the color of the Neuse where it conjoins.

Crabtree builds itself “shoulders” as it repeatedly overflows, dropping the heaviest particles first as the water disperse into the floodplain. This is why Crabtree presents such a tall ditched appearance as above at Hodge Road. The plants arrange themselves in an orderly sequence beside or on top of these embankments according to their tolerance for flooding.

The next time Crabtree rises over it’s banks, put on your rubber boots and check out the glistening mica-rich silt that covers the greenways before the city sends its scrapers to clear it off to the side, where it enriches the plants as well as any landscaper’s mulch. You are walking in the stuff that makes our floodplain soils, a rich muck delivered by the yearly floods.

Nature.org floodplain info

BBC floodplain story

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November 15, 2009

Hodge Road Creek Levels – Crabtree Changes with the Weather

Filed under: Central Raleigh, Crabtree Creek, Gems & Surprises, waterways — Tags: Crabtree Creek, creek levels — raleighnaturalist @ 2:54 am

Crabtree under Atlantic Ave at Hodge Road Nov. 11, 2009

Crabtree is a low -flow system that has carved itself an impressive channel through Raleigh over hundreds of thousands of years. That course fills to overflowing fairly often, as Crabtree drains a huge swath of Piedmont terrain, from Brier Creek in north Wake County, out to west Cary and down to Walnut Creek south of Raleigh. Flood control lakes such as Lynn and Shelley have eased flooding in Crabtree Valley, but Middle Crabtree Greenway in central Raleigh, as well as Walnut in East Raleigh, continues to flood after heavy rains. Above is 12 hours after high water at Atlantic Avenue and Hodge Road. Below is a high-low pair of pictures for the same spot.

Crabtree threatens 9-08 Underpass completed 7-08

I have posted about flooding here before at Raleigh Nature, and maintain an ongoing post of comparison pictures at my nature projects blog, Pecans & Mistletoe. “The Gar Hole” is the most important feature of this favorite stretch of greenway, accessible at Atlantic Avenue on weekends (parking available then at the plumbing supply warehouse) or at the deadend east of the Longbranch on weekdays (unless it’s flooded). So I take regular shots of the gar hole and the view from the railroad bridge at different seasons and water flows. Below are some interesting pairs.

June 07 November 09

March 07 June 07

Gar Hole after December 07 rains

Crabtree from Hodge Rd RR bridge 7 November and 4 days later after “Ida” rains.

Hodge Rd. RR bridge Jan 07 and after rains 11–11-09

Creek Levels at Pecans & Mistletoe

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box elder beetle at Hodge Rd RR bridge; barn spider

gar hole butterfly

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June 18, 2009

News, Notes and Another Promise

Filed under: About & reflection, Central Raleigh, Greenways & Parks, Raleigh History, Southwest Raleigh, waterways — Tags: Centennial Campus, Fletcher Park, floodplains, golf courses, NandO, Walnut Creek, wetlands, Yates Mill — raleighnaturalist @ 11:18 pm

The Natural View

Why I have posted just once a month for 3 months:

Best reason – my new column on nature and environment at Raleigh Public Record.

Very good one: I have been documenting The Bain Project, posting like a madman at Raleigh Rambles. The Bain Water Treatment Plant has plenty of relevance for Raleigh Nature, as it used nature’s own filtering process – gradations of rock and sand – to clean water drawn from Lakes Raleigh, Johnson, Benson, and Wheeler. It and the more ancient pumping station which served as the city’s first water facility sit beside Walnut Creek (more about Walnut Creek below). Just behind the Bain facility is a wonderful greenway deck that traverses wetlands strewn with swamp mallow, huge white blooms that startle in a sea of southern green.

Raleigh Naturalist presents at Bain

Good news: I have more time now, being a teacher, and I also hope to bring Raleigh Nature readers some neat photos from our anniversary weekend in Charleston and our upcoming trip to Bar Harbor and Mount Desert Island. My promise is at the end of the post.

Walnut Creek greenway at Rose Lane

Lots of happenings around the greenways. The section that follows Walnut Creek parallel to Poole Road got flooded Tuesday June 16, along with Rose Lane and other roads near the creek. The NandO story about the flooding was being followed up the next day by Josh Shaffer, who I met walking Rose Lane when I went to photograph the high water on the greenway. He was hoping to chat with some of the folks who are stranded by high water once every year or so at this dead-end extension of Rose Lane across the creek. I remember quite well my teenage years when Rose Lane dead-ended into a meadow well short of the creek, because we used to drive down there to park in what seemed like deep country in the sixties. Whoever decided to build houses past a perennial wetland with no outlet is the real problem, but the curent residents are facing the consequences. Josh covers lots of interesting stuff for Nando, from Legos to beloved beer slingers to taking small children to play in cemeteries. His recent story on kayaking Crabtree Creek really struck a chord, with its realistic description of the grit, mud and smells encountered on the creek, but I prefer the much quieter section of Crabtree above Lassiter Mill for canoe jaunts. Getting back to poor Walnut Creek, the heavy rains that caused flooding also sent 15,000 gallons of untreated sewage into the creek upstream in Cary, but the Nando story said no fish kills had been reported.

Newsflash from NandO: the 4 inches or so of rain also did damage at Yates Mill Pond, pictured above, which has temporarily closed the millsite and trails. Repairs are expected soon.

The new Lonnie Poole Golf Course around Lake Raleigh is mostly finished and expected to open in July. I posted dismal views and comments about this project in February 08, but when I stopped by recently I felt a little better. There are lots of wooded buffers, especially next to Walnut Creek, and I must admit the course is looking pretty.

Raleigh skyline from Poole Golf Course

The Fletcher Park water garden is being fine tuned. Apparently the water level, though quite low down in the retention ponds, was too high for some of the plantings, so a crew came in and extended a kind of penisula of land into the lowest pool, as you can see below. The crew that explained this to me were taking survey sightings to appraise the work that had been done. Many of the original plantings had been shifted to higher ground.

The ponds still look pretty muddy to me, but I know time will do wonders. They had an opinion on one item that had been bugging me since the NandO article – springs. There are no active springs in Fletcher Park, just surface water from the neighborhoods and seep from the ball fields. Fletcher Park’s lilies are in full bloom!

There! All the nature news fit to post. I can’t promise any certain frequency of posts, but I promise to stay totally committed to getting fresh postings up about nature and wildlife inside or near the beltline. See you on the greenways!

May 18, 2009

Grassy Branch Sees Daylight

Filed under: Central Raleigh, East Raleigh, Northeast Raleigh, green initiatives, waterways — Tags: Cedar Hills Park, daylighting creeks, Oakwood — raleighnaturalist @ 2:48 am

Many waterways in Raleigh travel unseen, as does Pigeon House Branch above. Recent years have seen efforts to rehabilitate – uncover and often “un-straighten” – creeks. The process is called daylighting. It helps with flood control and improves the ecosystem. It happened in Northeast Raleigh last year, and it’s set to happen for Rocky Branch on the NCSU campus(pdf). So Raleigh has recognized the process as valuable, but it is still an unusual occurrence. For one Oakwood resident, stymied in efforts to have the city uncover his backyard branch, the benefits were worth the huge personal effort of unearthing the waterway himself by hand.

Grassy Branch in Oakwood

Chris Crew is a longtime Oakwood resident who co-authored the wonderful Oakwood nature essay I recently featured. He lives on Elm Street, almost at the bottom of Oakwood’s slope. Grassy Branch is a small but steady flow that passes under Elm Street and edges his backyard. Until a couple of years ago, it passed unseen in a large buried pipe.

Chris learned of the city daylighting program and tried to get Grassy Branch uncovered. During heavy rains, the water backed up and even spouted out vertically from broken places in the pipes. The city couldn’t or wouldn’t do the work because other contiguous neighbors would not enlist their properties. Tired of the geysers and wanting a healthier backyard creek, Chris decided to do the job himself. So he and his family hand-dug and wenched out two sections of the 42 inch pipes.

Grassy Branch re-exposed below Elm Street

I don’t have pictures of “the dig” – I just heard about Chris’ project recently. But there is one more section he can remove before Grassy Branch crosses his property line. I’m hoping he’ll invite me to help, and I’ll be sure to let you know how it goes!

Grassy Branch re-enters pipe

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Both Pigeon House and Rocky Branch involve daylighting projects that have or will be addressed in other posts. An interesting neighborhood daylighting project finished up a couple of years ago near my school, the Fletcher Academy. The picture below shows the view my students and I have on nature walks at the bottom of Cedar Hills Rotary Park. Three years ago we were looking at the creek disappear into a large pipe.

Today, the adjoining houses have less to fear from flooding, and the biological and geologic interactions missing from pipe existence have been restored to the creek. One slightly bizarre feature of the project was the city’s purchase and destruction of a house on Mapleridge which sat practically on top of the creek.

site of former house at Big Branch

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August 9, 2010