Pokeberry Creek and Wetlands in Briar Chapel and Polks Landing

13/11/2021

Silly scientists and their good stewardship.

Seriously, it is very interesting to see how actual good stewardship is done. Briar Chapel did the very opposite with zero expertise. Just destroy and drain.

It would be great to have a current assessment of Pokeberry to compare to that of 2006-2009. Maybe Haw River assembly might be interested in assisting.

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Stream Steward Campaign: Targeting Two Threatened Creeks in Chatham County

Division of Water Quality, North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources

Section 319 US EPA Federal NPS Program Contract # EW07023 2006

November 1, 2006 to October 31, 2009 $121,425

Catherine Deininger Stream Steward Coordinator Haw River Assembly www.hawriver.org

https://hawriver.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/319-Final-Report-HRA-Two-Stream-Project_web.pdf

"....Pokeberry Creek is a more developed watershed than Dry Creek. It already is the home to many residential neighborhoods. It also is the home to many beavers and has many lovely wetland habitats that have done much to protect the downstream water quality in Pokeberry Creek. Muddy runoff from construction sites is being captured by these wetlands. Without additional
protection these wetlands will start to decline. The large wetland in Briar Chapel is a sad picture of what is happening to the wetlands throughout this watershed. ..."

10/04/2021

https://chapelboro.com/town-square/nationwide-study-finds-pittsboros-drinking-water-among-worst-in-u-s

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From the news article: "The Haw River, which flows through Pittsboro and supplies the town with its drinking water, is ‘one of the most impacted’ waterways in terms of unregulated chemicals in the Cape Fear Basin, according to Detlef Knappe, S. James Ellen Distinguished Professor of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering at N.C. State."

“Water is essential to life,” he said. “… So become activists, become empowered and discover what you can do to try to correct this in your communities.”

By D. Lars Dolder, Chatham News + Record Staff An expansive nationwide study has confirmed what Chathamites have long suspected: Pittsboro has some of the worst drinking water in the country. Last month, Consumer Reports — a non-profit “dedicated to unbiased product testing, investigative journa...

03/04/2021

The plan of continual dam destruction by residents, and then as policy voted for by 4 of the BCCA board is the cause of devastation to the wetlands along Pokeberry Creek in Briar Chapel. It has been happening in various forms for a long time. This might come at a huge cost to bcca (us), and is for sure a huge loss to our environment. So much has been destroyed all along Pokeberry in BC and will affect all of pokeberry on into the Haw River and back to our faucets via Jordan lake. And it's been conducted with exceedingly false information.

30/03/2021

The pictures with this post are of the portion of upper Pokeberry Creek floodplain/riparian "buffer" zone in Briar Chapel upstream from where the Culvert crosses under Great Ridge Parkway. It is indicated on the attached map by the parallel red and blue lines.
Steep and deep erosion, up to at least six feet, all along the creek. Large 30 feet by 30 feet plus swaths of land sunken straight down by 3 plus feet from erosion. This area was a beaver pond and wetlands with a 5 feet high beaver dam until about 6 years ago, eliminated by planned destruction of the dam and burying the likely occupied beaver lodge using heavy equipment. For all practical purposes, there are now no wetlands here other than a few small spots where downhill rain run-off from BC drains directly to and collects on the floodplain floor. There is no connection of the creek with the floodplain floor. The floodplain floor here gets virtually no water from the creek. Rain events surge through here with unmitigated force downstream, delivering no water to the surrounding earth, and forcing the eroded sand and clay downstream all along Pokeberry Creek. When rain surges subside, the water depth above the stream bed is for the most part a few inches or less, up to six feet below the floodplain floor. The picture with the red outlining and red and blue down stripes show a large section of the floodplain floor that has collapsed straight down about 3 feet from erosion. It is not the only such large collapsed section of the floodplain floor along upper Pokeberry Creek floodplain. 2 of the pictures show beige clay and sand-filled watery run-off from a Briar Chapel retention pond flowing across the floodplain ground and into Pokeberry Creek. Whether all this is good, bad, or indifferent, it is something to know.