Meadowsweet Creek Clean-up

Article by Jonathan Nyberg

In June of 1999, my wife Rebecca and I begin looking for a house to buy. Starting out from our rented room on Duke Street, we wound through a few neighborhoods before heading down James Street from Lakewood Avenue. We liked the street immediately, and when we got to the bottom of the hill we saw a For Sale sign, with a telephone number, nailed to a tree. Looking down the driveway we saw a small blue house surrounded by nice woods and a creek. Two months later we closed on the house, our new address, 1613 James St.

In the summer of 1999 the creek dried up. But right under the square concrete pipe where the creek emerges from under James St. there continued to be a pool of clear water. "There must be a tiny spring," we concluded with great excitement. When Hurricane Floyd struck, a large chunk of earth slid into the creek. That's when we discovered the source of our urban spring, a leak from a nearby fire hydrant. It turns out this leak had undermined the hillside, making it vulnerable to Floyd's rain. The city capped our spring and fixed the hillside.

I soon started pulling out trash that washed down the creek, and

alerting the city whenever the creek was fouled by sewage.

After reading a story about the Neuse Riverkeeper, I joked to

Rebecca that we are the Meadowsweet Creek-keepers. Then one day I was reading the newsletter that comes with the water bill (doesn't everyone read those?) and I noticed the city was starting an Adopt-a-Stream program. Citizens can sign up to monitor streams, creeks, and wetlands, in a noble attempt to enlist citizen help in cleaning up our waterways. My first thought was, "How do I sign up?" I e-mailed a city employee named Laura Smith. She was very helpful in getting us signed up and she promised us a metal sign just like one of those Adopt-a-Highway signs. How cool is that?

On April 24th, a friend and I headed up Meadowsweet Creek from our house for the first time as official creek-keeper. My friend had a machete, hacking a rough path through the wisteria, roses, blackberries, and bamboo. I followed with pruners, fine-tuning the path. Our goal was to make it possible for volunteers to walk in the creek and haul out trash. We discovered a five-foot waterfall, many beautiful rocks, and a bamboo gorge 10 feet deep.

On April 29th, the first volunteers walked the creek and picked out lumber, a lawn chair frame, 8 partial bags of trash, and a very nice, usable old leaf rake, which I'm always on the look-out for. The walking was rough, with many pools deeper than our boots, so we had to be careful. Todd Twigg described it as "…spelunking through the wisteria caves of Meadowsweet Creek." Besides Todd, volunteers included Kristin Twigg, Rebecca Wellborn, Jennifer Albright, and Diane Currier.

By the time we were finished exploring the creek it was noon. Tired, hungry, and a little damp, we went to the Q Shack. We sat outside, sharing good food at this local restaurant, with friends and neighbors. I felt good that we had started to clean up the water that represents our neighborhood to everything downstream. And who can resist one of those signs?

For information about the Adopt-a-Stream program, contact Laura Smith at 560-4326, or email .

For information about Meadowsweet Creek, contact Jonathan Nyberg at 493-5224, or email .