Northeast Creek Streamwatch

• June 6, 3:00pm, Stream Monitoring at the Grandale Bridge (meet at Parkwood Library parking lot)
• June 6, 7:00pm Kayak Adventures Paddle for Haw River Assembly
• June 9, 5:30pm, City Council Chambers, Durham City Hall, Durham City-County Planning Commission consideration of Jordan Lake boundary issue
• June 13, 3:00pm, Stream Monitoring at Sohi Road (meet at Parkwood Library parking lot)
• June 14, 3:00pm, Stream Monitoring at Highway 55 (meet at Parkwood Library parking lot)
• June 17, 7:00pm, Parkwood Library, Northeast Creek Streamwatch Monthly Meeting
• June 20, 3:00pm, Stream Monitoring at O’Kelly Church Road (meet at Parkwood Library)

Northeast Creek Streamwatch will train new volunteers in stream monitoring.

Kayak Adventures will conduct a paddle up Northeast Creek from Lake Jordan on Saturday, April 23, 2:30-5:30 pm as a part of Northeast Creek Streamwatch’s Earth Month program.

Contact Kayak Adventures (Susanne) at 919-929-3805 or 919-259-2241 for details.

Features on this part of Northeast Creek are:

• beaver lodges
• herons
• woodpeckers
• ospreys

Three Northeast Creek Streamwatch members attended the Joint Durham City/County Stormwater Citizens Participation Group meeting for the water quality recovery plans for Third Fork Creek and Northeast Creek. Present were soil and water conservation staff, city stormwater staff, representatives from UNC-Chapel Hill, and neighborhood groups interested in the water quality of Northeast Creek and Third Fork Creek.

Some buzzwords and acronyms you might hear

303(d) list - a federally required list of waters that do not meet water quality standards that the state of North Carolina has set for them even after point sources of pollution, such as private, corporate and public sewage treatment plants have installed the minimum required level of technology.

BMP - best management practice, a structure (such as a retention pond) or an activity that is judged as effective in reducing pollutants

POC - pollutant of concern

TMDL - total maximum daily load of pollutants permitted by state and federal law and TMDL plans.

About Northeast Creek

Northeast Creek flows into Jordan Lake and is subject to the Jordan Lake TMDL and management strategy. The Jordan Lake TMDL requires reductions of nitrogen and phosphorus from the Northeast Creek watershed. Previously there was a TMDL specific to Northeast Creek for fecal coliform bacteria. Pollutants on the 2008 draft 303(d) list include turbidity (suspended solid particles), low dissolved oxygen, and nitrates/nitrites. In addition, the City of Durham, the NC Division of Water Quality (NC DWQ), the Upper Cape Fear River Basin Association (UCFRBA), and the US Geological Survey (USGS), which are monitoring Northeast Creek, have found other pollutants; specifically, copper has been found at levels higher than “action level” standards. Another pollutant of concern is polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which often occur from runoffs from parking lots sealed with compounds containing these compounds.

The NC DWQ has issued stormwater permits in the Northeast Creek watershed for Glaxo-Wellcome, National Specialty Gases, and SCM Metal Products.

Best management practice (BMP) structures in the Northeast Creek watershed include wet and dry stormwater detention ponds, bioretention areas, and constructed wetlands. All of these structures provide control of peak stormwater flows.

Non-structural best management practices in the Northeast Creek watershed include watershed-specific public education and outreach, prioritization of illicit discharge detection and elimination, prioritization of industrial inspections, increased frequency of street sweeping, encouraging homeowner and community rain gardens, and encouraging the use of low-impact development techniques. Each of these has the potential to decrease pollution reaching Northeast Creek.

There are two USGS stream guages on Northeast Creek. The first is on SR 1100 (Grandale Road) near Northeast Creek Streamwatch’s monitoring site. The second is on the north prong of Northeast Creek on SR 1182 (Fletcher-Carpenter Road).

The City of Durham is required to identify and map the locations of known major outfalls (stormwater pipes greater than 12 inches in diameter) that have the possibility of discharging pollutants, especially POCs, into impaired waters or tributaries of impaired waters. The City of Durham is currently identifying those outfalls in Northeast Creek. Work began in 2008 and continues into 2010.

The next steps in this process include the creation of a water quality monitoring plan, a conceptual model of the interaction of polluting sources in Northeast Creek and Third Fork Creek, identification of best management practices, and a cost/benefit analysis of the best management practices to determine which the study will recommend for the City and County to pursue.

In the fall, members of Northeast Creek Streamwatch planted lariape (monkey grass) to slow erosion along the side of a building at Parkwood Elementary school.

Recently, Northeast Creek Streamwatch members, Parkwood Elementary teachers and a a group of first graders worked on erosion control of an area that is next to the water-wise garden and just below the water barrel at the Parkwood Elementary School.

by Michael Pollock

There have been some complaints about the dead trees in the swamps and beaver ponds around Newhall Village and Parkwood. these trees are mostly at a safe distance from yards and are on the public lands administered by the Army Corps of Engineers and the NC Wildlife Commission around Jordan Lake. Even if they could be cut, this would harm wildlife that the community should value.

Redheaded woodpeckers, bold woodpeckers with black and white wings, white bellies, and brilliant red heads, are one of the species most dependent on the snags. They can be seen in other places, but beaver ponds with tall dead trees echo with the trilling calls of redheads. They nest in snags and stuff acorns into cracks for the winter. Pileated woodpeckers, hawk-sized black and white woodpeckers with red crests, live in the deep woods around Northeast Creek and excavate nest holes in dead trees. Other woodpeckers and nuthatches also use snags. Hawks and ospreys build large stick nests in snags. Herons, such as the great blue herons you can see in Parkwood and elsewhere, also nest in snags and tall trees.

Because of the lack old trees and adequately large forests, there are fewer nesting sites for many species. Snags only last so long. The old beaver pond under the large powerline that crosses Grandale once had redheaded woodpeckers, but most of the snags have fallen and it will be decades before the trees are large enough to start the cycle again. Chimney swifts, the small swallow-like birds that twitter high above Durham all day in the summer, originally lived in large hollow trees, but now there are more chimneys than hollow trees, hence the name. Because the swamp is remote, it also shelters native birds from competition with the non-native starlings and house sparrows for scarce hollow trees. Wasps and feral bees make use of hollows and woodpecker cavities, as do hibernating mourning cloaks, question marks, and other butterflies.

Beyond the snags, these swamps are very valuable. In the spring and summer they bring every night with choruses of frogs and toads, including the cowbell-like call of locally rare green treefrogs, slender green frogs with white side stripes. In the fall and winter salamanders lay eggs in fish-free pools. Without the swamps, nearby communities would not have American and Fowler’s toads to control pests. Fish like bowfin, pickerel, and mosquitofish breed in the beaver ponds and control larval mosquitoes, which prefer puddles, not ponds. Raucous blue and white belted kingfishers dive for fish. There are also crayfish, freshwater shrimp, pill clams, dragonflies, and buttonbushes, a swamp flower that abundantly attracts butterflies and moths in midsummer. Fallen trees become natural planters and walkways for wildlife. The bottomlands are habitat for colorful wood ducks, migrating birds, turkeys, woodcocks, beavers, muskrats, foxes, deer, raccoons, opossums, and possibly occasional otters, mink, bobcats, coyotes, aand bears. At night the swamps echo with the calls of barred owls, which nest in hollow trees, as do nocturnal southern flying squirrels.

Snags that threaten homes should be removed, but there is beauty in a snag and a swamp, and they are both home to many beautiful and interesting species that many would be sad to lose.

Kayak Adventures invites you to our HALLOWEENY ROAST PADDLE, Sat. Oct.11, 5pm-8pm. on Jordan Lake. Enjoy the sunset, paddle to Skull island where we will roast hot dogs and make smores at our campfire; then watch the moon rise and paddle back with headlamps. Adults and teens; $45 includes equipment, instruction, guide and food .

Call 919-929-3805

From Susanne Gomolski of Kayak Adventures:

SATURDAY SEPT.13-sunset fullmoon paddle NOW WITH HOT DOGS! Paddle, watch the sunset, make a campfire on Skull Island where we make smores and roast hot dogs. Return in the glow of the full moon with headlamps. 6pm-9:30pm $45

YOU ARE INVITED!!! SO COME ON OUT AND HAVE SOME FUN

For more information, call Kayak Adventures at 919-929-3805 or 919-259-2241 or email Kayak Adventures.

From Susanne Gomolski of Kayak Adventures:

Sat. August 16-SUNSET-FULLMOON PADDLE- This will be a double feature with the sunset and full moon rise at the same time! AND in addition to our usual smores we will dine on roasted hot dogs (meat and veggie) with mustard, ketchup, relish and if Gregg has his way , kraut.This will be in celebration of my birthday month. So come on out and join the Campfire Supper Cruise. on Jordan Lake. 6:30-10pm,$45

Friday August 22- SUNSET PADDLE-Paddle in the eagle observation area of Jordan Lake to an island, swim, snack, then paddle back into the sunset. 6pm.-8:30pm $35

For more information, call Kayak Adventures at 919-929-3805 or 919-259-2241 or email Kayak Adventures.

From Susanne Gomolski of Kayak Adventures:

July trips on Jordan Lake- Come on out and cool off.
SATURDAY JULY 12, PICNIC LUNCH PADDLE-10am to 12;30ish pm; Eagle Management Area; includes island lunch stop and swim, $40
SATURDAY JULY 19-SUNSET-FULL MOON PADDLE-6:45pm; sunset, campfire, smores and moonrise!, paddle back in the moonlight, $45
SATURDAY JULY 26-SUNSET PADDLE-6pm-9pm; paddle to osprey nest, stop for snack and swim, the paddle back into the sunset, $40

For more information, call Kayak Adventures at 919-929-3805 or 919-259-2241 or email Kayak Adventures.

During Northeast Creek Streamwatch’s environmental education tabling at the Piedmont Wildlife Center Festival at Leigh Farms Park. This event launched the career of the Paw-Paws, the unofficial Northeast Creek chorus, now numbering three or four, with this song:

Down by the Creek,
where the scavenging raccoons,
back to their home
I dare not loom.
For if I did,
my mother would squeak,
“Have you ever seen the sediment?
What an impediment!!
Down by the Creek.

Down by the Creek
where the paw-paw blooms
lives a little zebra
who zigs, zags, and zooms.
Who knew a zebra
could waft and sail?
Not a mammal, silly
Zebra Swallowtail!
…

Lots of folks from all over the Triangle got to hear about Northeast Creek, and we got to hang out with other environmental and watershed groups.