Reedy Creek: “There’s no need for that”
“There’s no need for that” said one Randolph-Macon College student on the location and type of garbage we found in Reedy Creek during a cleanup Saturday morning organized by the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay and HandsOn Greater Richmond. There were more than 40 volunteers did their duty in for September 11 National Day of Service, including […]
“There’s no need for that” said one Randolph-Macon College student on the location and type of garbage we found in Reedy Creek during a cleanup Saturday morning organized by the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay and HandsOn Greater Richmond.
There were more than 40 volunteers did their duty in for September 11 National Day of Service, including students from R-MC, Virginia Commonwealth University and concerned neighbors and citizens. Bill Shanabruch and Suzette Lyon of the Reedy Creek Coalition were also there.The cleanup was in the neighborhood off Beaufont Hill Drive behind Miles Jones Elementary in the upper section of Reedy Creek before it begins to grow and charge downhill past German School Road and toward Westover Hills and Forest Hill Park and eventually the James River. The neighborhood is reclaimed wetlands and the poor creek looks abused and neglected as it winds behind homes and through old metal storm pipes under roadways.
We cleaned at least three pickup truck loads of garbage from wetlands and the creek bed. Hub caps, am old reclining chair, a metal pipe, ceramics, car parts, including a door, a fishing net, chip bags, and of course plenty of bottles and cans. The weirdest might have been a high amount of cigar filters. “Who does that?” the students wondered.
“All of this trash was tossed here,” said another student, agreeing that it was unlikely that any had been washed off of someone’s back porch. It was typical and emblematic of most neighborhood and watershed cleanups, but it doesn’t make sense to be so sloppy with trash.I don’t understand our need to develop wetlands. The cost of dealing with the problems associated with flooding – washed out roads and constant repair to roadways — can’t be worth the trouble. The neighborhood seemed nice enough, but its a great example of unnecessary development of wetlands when there is plenty of unused land or land that needs infill in Richmond that is not in flood-prone areas.
The flooding on Midlothian Turnpike at German School Road is emblematic of this problem. Too much unneeded and development and poor design in a setting that might best be left to be a wetland buffer, ready to absorb nature’s abundance when we get heavy rains.
More photos: Flickr
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