Lower Booker Creek Trail has typically been an underutilized spot in the community, but several nonprofits are hoping to transform it into a more attractive space for people and animals alike.
The space behind Eastgate Crossing shopping center currently consists of a concrete trail that passes behind various apartment complexes and a modest, mowed grass area. On Friday morning, about 30 volunteers worked to fill it with native with native flora and fauna. Led by East Chapel Hill Rotary Club as part of the Adopt a Trail initiative sponsored by the Chapel Hill Parks & Recreation Department, the planting effort is a way to beautify and improve storm water management along the trail.
Longtime member of the Friends of Chapel Hill Parks and Rec, Jeanette Bench was one of the local volunteers who showed up to work under October 2’s cloudless sky.
“It’s so hot,” Bench said. “It’s a heat island.”
That fact is one reason why it can be hard for anyone to enjoy the space on the increasingly hot days, according to New Hope Bird Alliance’s Barbara Driscoll.
“The whole area used to be filled with trees,” Driscoll said. “And when [the town] created this storm basin, they cut down all the trees, so that created a huge heat island in between a bunch of apartments and asphalt.
“So it’s only heat island within heat island,” she continued. “And we hope that by doing this, we will also help a little bit with the climate for the area, a little bit of cooling, making a nicer place for people to walk.”
The adopted section of Lower Booker Creek sits behind Eastgate’s ALDI, which closed for nine months as a result of Chantal’s historic flooding. (Image via Emma Cooke/Chapel Hill Media Group.)
The local Audubon chapter helped curate the list of native species to be introduced to the trail, including Blue Mistflowers, Elderberry, Swamp Milkweed, Wild Quinine, River Birch, and Inkberry — all of which will better serve local pollinators, insect, and bird populations that will not eat non-native plants. Driscoll said the goal is to create a more robust park system, instead of the largely mowed grass area that currently exists there. And with the added vegetation, the area will hopefully better absorb stormwater during extreme rain.
East Chapel Hill Rotary formally adopted Lower Booker Creek Trail in August. The club’s president David Baddour noted how the adopted portion, which the rotary club will manage moving forward, sits in a dip directly behind ALDI. The grocery store only reopened in April after flooding from Tropical Depression Chantal forced its doors closed for nine months.
“It’s such a flood-prone area of Chapel Hill, as we all know,” Baddour said. “Wouldn’t it be nice if these plantings could help just in some small way mitigate flooding? Also, it just looks great. It’s a beautiful area. I’m guessing a lot of people in town don’t know about this section of the greenway, but it already looks much better with the mulch and the new planting. So I hope this sticks around for years.”
Lower Booker Creek Trail is surrounded by retail and apartment complexes, including Bell Chapel Hill, which flooded during Chantal. (Image via Emma Cooke/Chapel Hill Media Group.)
Most of those in attendance for the tree planting could not speak to the importance of the event without mentioning Chantal, including the rotary club’s Bob Ostrum, who pitched that the service organization adopt Lower Booker Creek Trail. While overlooking the floodplain, he pointed to the neighboring Bell Chapel Hill apartment complex.
“That apartment building, the bottom floor actually, flooded,” Ostrum said. “That’s how high [the creek] got. And so, because Eastgate was built on top of Booker Creek, which was not a great idea, the flooding keeps happening. So the plan here is to help beautify the area.
“We’ll plant today,” Ostrum continued. “We’ll maintain it, and hopefully in a few years, all these will be mature trees, and we’ll be helping the community.”
Featured image via Emma Cooke/Chapel Hill Media Group
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