By Susan Dickson
Staff Writer
In 2007, a study funded by the Clean Water Management Trust Fund found 30 sites in the Bolin Creek watershed that were prime spots for restoration projects – and just a few years later, one of those projects is complete.
The 30 identified locations were later narrowed to 10, including Carrboro’s Baldwin Park. Following the study, the towns of Carrboro and Chapel Hill secured about $850,000 in grants from the Environmental Protection Agency and the N.C. Division of Water Quality to fund stream-restoration projects, including $370,000 for the Baldwin Park project.
According to Carrboro environmental planner Randy Dodd, the restoration project involved reconfiguring the stream channel to make it more stable, using careful engineering to rebuild the stream and stabilizing stream banks with vegetation. The project also entailed creating a natural buffer in the area adjacent to the stream, and removing invasive plants and replacing them with native plants, including some that produce edible fruit, like paw paws, persimmons and blueberries.
Project engineers also diverted stormwater running through pipes under Broad Street into a rain garden filled with very permeable soil.
“A rain garden basically filters the pollution and the water,†allowing it to more naturally infiltrate, Dodd said.
Carrboro and Chapel Hill officials worked on the project with N.C. State University’s Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, as well as nearby landowners.
“The main thing is reducing the amount of sediment that’s going into the creek,†Dodd said. “[The projects] will be helping with the amount of nitrogen and phosphorous that goes into the creek, and they will be basically calming the high flows from storm events so that the rate of runoff of the water itself … will be calmed so it won’t be as hard on the creek banks themselves.â€
The grant that financed the Baldwin Park project will also fund restoration at Mill Race, an analysis of restoration alternatives for the tributary draining downtown Chapel Hill and the development of a watershed-restoration plan. A second grant is funding a demonstration project at McDougle Middle School, a restoration project on Dry Gulch and runoff monitoring in the Pacifica neighborhood.
Elected officials from Carrboro and Chapel Hill will dedicate the newly completed project on April 9 at 9:30 a.m. at Baldwin Park, 400 Broad St.
Watershed restoration and plan experts from NCSU will lead tours of the park showcasing the measures taken to repair the previously degraded streams. Backyard rain-garden instructions and information about plant species recommended for stream buffers will be available.