
{"id":12747,"date":"2010-09-23T08:41:41","date_gmt":"2010-09-23T16:41:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=12747"},"modified":"2010-09-23T08:41:41","modified_gmt":"2010-09-23T16:41:41","slug":"can-we-save-bolin-creek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2010\/09\/23\/can-we-save-bolin-creek\/","title":{"rendered":"Can we save Bolin Creek?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/bolin092310.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/bolin092310.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"bolin092310\" width=\"450\" height=\"301\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-12790\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/bolin092310.jpg 450w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/bolin092310-113x75.jpg 113w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/bolin092310-150x100.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/bolin092310-360x240.jpg 360w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/bolin092310-120x80.jpg 120w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<strong>By Linda Haac<br \/>\n<\/strong><br \/>\nMany people believe it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s simple to create a concrete corridor through the woods along Bolin Creek. You just follow the sewer easement that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s already a narrow, somewhat worn path. You just roll out the concrete as if it were AstroTurf and everything stays the same. <\/p>\n<p>Wrong! It doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t matter how you feel about pavement down there, the reality is construction of a concrete corridor along Bolin Creek would require a large swath through the woods. The result would be an unrecognizable landscape. What had been a stunningly beautiful stretch of creek and forest would become a hard-scaped, suburban-style landscape. <\/p>\n<p>We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve learned to adhere to state and town regulations; the town would need to place the concrete corridor outside the 30-foot stream buffer. This puts the roadway up onto the steep valley slopes, which would require cutting down important specimen trees and putting up retaining walls like those at Chapel Hill\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Meadowmont (an addition as unnatural as you can get). Moreover, this corridor is in a narrow valley, unlike the greenways along Booker and Bolin creeks in Chapel Hill, which are in wide, flat valleys that allow room for greenways well away from the creek.<\/p>\n<p>Carrboro town staff members, in fact, have recommended \u00e2\u20ac\u0153improvements be pursued such that the greenway trail is at least 25\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 from the creek\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6. This will protect the riparian and creek ecosystem, and minimize trail maintenance costs.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d They have also recommended the sewer line be moved \u00e2\u20ac\u0153to avoid multiple future major construction impacts on the riparian area along the creek.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The sewer line would then be moved up the valley slope, beginning most likely about 55 feet from the creek.<\/p>\n<p>Study this photograph and realize the proposed 30-foot clearing for paving would begin beyond the 30-foot buffer marked here. Visualize then another 30-foot clearing for paving in addition to the current 20- to 30-foot cleared OWASA easement. The result is as much as a 60-foot clearing through our woods \u00e2\u20ac\u201c enough to wipe out the Barred Owl\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s habitat and to produce a clearly altered landscape. <\/p>\n<p>Why would we even consider this when better alternatives already exist or are planned? Ask people in Durham about Ellerbe Creek and what it means to pave next to a creek and how much damage not only is done but what problems continue. Think about this corridor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s costs doubling or tripling or quadrupling. Perhaps, if the beavers down at the creek could talk, they would warn us: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153This is a really bad idea!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p><em>Linda Haac is a member of Save Bolin Creek.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Many people believe it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s simple to create a concrete corridor through the woods along Bolin Creek. You just follow the sewer easement that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s already a narrow, somewhat worn path. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":12790,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12747"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12747\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12801,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12747\/revisions\/12801"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}