Ten Sites for Reflection
Peavine Creek
Before you cross Oxford Road, pause to look at this disturbed
wooded area. Kudzu has been removed here, and a future
streambank restoration project is planned to stabilize
the area.
Now walk behind 1399 Oxford Road (Center for Science
Education). Please cross Oxford Road carefully. Notice
the condition of the Baker Woodland creek as it emerges
from under Oxford Road. Continue walking to the rear of
the CVS parking lot to see the Baker Woodland creek enter
Peavine Creek.
Much of the western
border of the Emory campus is Peavine Creek. Note how
high on the creek sides you can see trash deposited by
storm surges. Such torrents also destroy habitat for the
small in-stream insects that support a healthy ecosystem.
Erosion along the streambank causes property loss--Emory
and our neighbors have lost three to six feet in various
locations as the creek has widened. Eroded banks cause
trees to fall, further damaging the protective buffer.
In the past, building
practices disregarded the need for buffer vegetation,
often paving right up to the creek, as we see here. Today,
state law requires a 25-foot riparian buffer zone of natural
vegetation along creekbanks. The tumbled rocks (rip rap)
that hold the bank by the CVS parking lot are less desirable
than a healthy forested buffer, because they do not allow
habitat for the organisms that help clean the water and
maintain a healthy creek ecosystem. Planted buffers also
help strain out pollutants such as automobile oil carried
in rainwater runoff from parking lots, a major cause of
poor streamwater quality in the Metro area. Rainwater
passing over hot pavement in summer also brings sharp
changes to stream temperature, another reason to favor
riparian buffers.
Emory is collaborating
with the Peavine Watershed Alliance to restore this area
to become Peavine Park. A small mountain of kudzu and
trash was removed in past cleanups. Future plans involve
replanting and streambank stabilization. Future reconciliation
dilemmas: can this trash-filled "backyard" become
a clean and peaceful walking trail uniting commercial
areas and the creek for recreation and personal renewal?
Return as you came to Oxford Road and follow the sidewalk
to your left, to the next site near the campus iron gates
(where Pierce Drive meets Oxford Road).
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