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greensplainer
There Is Water Underground
SAME AS IT EVER WAS. STREAMS FLOW EVEN WHEN THEY’RE BURIED
By Jason Perry news@flagpole.com
We have a complicated relationship
with water. Athens and the University of
Georgia are said to be located where they
are because of the spring that gives Spring
Street its name. We are situated between
two rivers (the North and Middle Oconee)
that today supply our entire city with fresh
water. Yet we as a community have had a
tendency to turn our backs on the rivers,
and but for a restoration project conducted
by UGA in 2008, the Founders’ Spring
would have remained buried under an
anonymous grassy strip of ground and been
lost to history.
Elementary between East Rutherford and
Woodrow streets, then runs through cul
verts under Foley Field and the College of
Veterinary Medicine. (There used to be a
small lake there.) The culvert continues
under East Campus Road and across the
front of the Joe Frank Harris Commons
until it sees daylight again at the Lamar
Dodd School of Art before it meets the
North Oconee River.
As opposed to digging up culverts, vir
tual daylighting uses surface features and
markers to educate people about the water
way beneath them. There is work in prog-
Watershed Elevation
Lilly Branch. Tanyard Creek, and North Oconee River
Legend
Hydrology
Tanyard Creek Watershed
North Oconee Rtver Sub-Watershed
Lily Branch Watershed
815 feet
705
OalaSoercct | Water Quality Retort (Brown ♦ CaMhxl); AOMU Rcgenal latomutlM System; UGA Office or Urttenfty Arc# *«ts CIS Database
Of the 90,000 Bulldog fans who fill
Sanford Stadium, I wonder if more than
a handful are aware that a creek runs
between—and underneath—the hedges.
The UGA campus, in fact, has five water
sheds: Tanyard Creek, Lilly Branch,
Founders’ Spring, the Steam Plant Stream
and Lake Herrick. In natural areas, these
watersheds are easily recognizable as river
valleys, for example. But in an urban envi
ronment, waterways are often built over,
hidden in a culvert or shunned behind a
chain link fence or overgrown invasive
plants. Not only that, but the storm sewer
network drains into these urban creeks, col
lecting automotive fluids, poop, trash, sedi
ment and everything else that runs off of
our streets, parking lots, roofs and yards.
The Watershed UGA initiative (water-
shed.uga.edu) aims to put a spotlight on
these hidden waterways and encourage
their restoration and protection. This town-
gown project—spearheaded by the Odum
School of Ecology and the UGA Office of
Sustainability and funded in part by a grant
from the Ray C. Anderson Foundation—
seeks to raise awareness about stream
restoration and engage UGA students and
employees as well as the broader Athens
community by virtually “daylighting” cam
pus waterways.
One current focus is Lilly Branch, which
begins as a natural stream near Barrow
ress to build a dry stream bed in a wooded
area west of Joe Frank Harris mimicking
the flow of Lilly Branch in the culvert below.
The next phase of this crowdfunded project
(you can still contribute at dar.uga.edu/
funder/campaigns/watershed-uga) will be
to incorporate a rain garden to bioremedi
ate runoff from the nearby parking lot.
To date, the most recent stream restora
tion on Lilly Branch was during construc
tion of the new Lamar Dodd School of
Art building in 2008. UGA Sustainability
Director Kevin Kirsche, who at that time
was the project manager for the art school
construction, says that “while it was only
a partial restoration that mostly involved
clearing away the invasive species from that
section of Lilly, we felt that once people
could see the stream, they would value it.”
While there are not any actual day
lighting projects planned at the moment,
Kirsche is encouraged enough by the suc
cess of Watershed UGA to bring in addi
tional grant funding to improve campus
watersheds. “With help from the Riverview
Foundation and Southern Company, plans
are being developed to enhance Lake
Herrick for experiential learning, research
and limited recreation activities in the
future.” ©
Got a question for the Greensplainer? Email news@
flagpole.com.
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