At the expense of what?

I find myself in an odd situation.

As I have championed rain gardens as a tool to help save our waterways from the destructive forces of large volumes of storm water run-off and the pollution that accompanies it, I am hesitant to support the proposed buffer zone to protect a portion of Ellerbe Creek that runs through our urban park.

Going back to comments in an earlier post, there are problems in our watersheds with the run-off from so much development (read that as impervious surfaces that don't absorb rain water).

In our area, the capital of North Carolina, that being Raleigh, wants the pollution flowing into Falls Lake, their source of water for the citizenry, to stop. So they look upstream and find that the Ellerbe Creek watershed needs some changes because the creeks water has the worst quality of any creek in the state. Think of this as pollution running downhill and problems running uphill.

A massive stream renovation project was done through Northgate Park, a city owned urban park. This gives the city/county of Durham credits for having created BMP's (that's Best Management Practices for those not in the know) to help offset the problems they are having in Falls Lake.

The park itself comprises a parcel of about 18 acres. One side is a heavily sloped wooded bank filled with invasives (read poison ivy here) that is unusable for recreation. This piece constitutes at least 25% of the park proper. The new creek banks and buffer area (no mow zone) that is proposed takes up another 5.2 acres so there goes another usable part of the park amounting to about 28%. Picnic areas, safe clear spaces beside the children's play area and an informal soccer field have been swallowed up by the buffer. The neighborhood association is already hearing from parents of small children about future safety concerns.

I could live with this except for the fact that the neighborhood of Northgate Park's Adopt-A-Park group has been diligently tending to the park and creating sight lines extending through and across the park for personal safety for the last 6 years. Guidelines for the clean-ups come from CPTED (Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design) principles.

We, as a neighborhood, have been fighting crime for years because of the proximity of a small commercial district and property management companies that aren't really managing to keep units maintained so that they attract law abiding individuals who would love to live near the school where they work or the business that they own. Instead we battle streetwalkers, drugdealers and party houses with front yards filled with beer drinking 24/7. Right now no one can hide in the park anymore because they would be so visible. That is about to change.

This new no mow zone will be filled with new trees (1400) and shrubs (2338. The shrubsvary in height from 7 feet up to as much as 30 feet. Granted the survival rate will lower this count but still, there go our clear sight lines for safety and crime prevention.

A little research of articles on the watershed and restoration plans for the creek on my part brought me to the conclusion that stream restorations aren't taking into consideration whether they occur on a golf course, in a country setting or running through densely populated urban neighborhoods.

And of course I find a way to bring this all back to rain gardens. If developments were putting rain gardens into yards, the rain water wouldn't be leaving most properties but instead would be soaking down through the soil and entering the water table in a benign manner.

With the cost of stream renovations sometimes totalling in the millions, doesn't it make more sense to offer grants for rain gardens and really do a serious promotion so that both established homes and builders/developers would be eager to utilize this tool to reduce their storm water run-off.

You'd think so wouldn't you.