Students to clean up littered local creek

Blacks Run getting much needed face-lift in recognition of national Earth Day

Dave Kim / senior photographer A creek in Blacks Run, behind Spanky's restaurant downtown, will be one of many sections undergoing a cleanup Saturday, in conjunction with Earth Day, Monday.

After becoming polluted with trash and chemical contaminants, Blacks Run, a six-mile long stream that passes directly through Harrisonburg, is getting some much-needed help from students and other Harrisonburg residents this weekend.

Saturday — two days before national Earth Day — marks the fifth annual Blacks Run Cleanup Day.

"This is everyone's community," said Patricia May, president of the Harrisonburg-Rockingham Chamber of Commerce. "We all need to work to help keep it clean.

With the help of an estimated 250 volunteers, approximately five miles of the stream will be cleaned Saturday, according to May.

Trash and debris will be removed from the stream, its banks and the surrounding streets, which are a major source of run-off pollution, May said. She said a number of trees will be planted at five sites to combat stream-bank erosion.

May said this event, which she helped create, has "really done quite a bit in the community to raise awareness."

Kai Degner, a JMU graduate student who plans to participate in this year's cleanup, said, "I had a really great time at last year's event. It felt really good to get out of the JMU bubble and give something back to the community."

Sophomore Colleen Gorman, one of about 10 other JMU students who also participated last year, said, "I liked the fact that I could see the difference I was making. By the time we finished, the stream looked so much better than it had before."

This year's participants will meet in the small field across from the Harrisonburg Daily News-Record building on Liberty Street at 8:30 a.m. Saturday for registration, May said.

Garbage bags and gloves will be distributed, and the groups will go out to clean their designated areas. Around 11 a.m., when the groups are done, lunch will be served and there will be live music, according to May. 

The Harrisonburg trolley, known as the "Water Bus" for the day, will give an informational tour of Blacks Run for elected officials, educators and other interested persons, May said.

One group giving an informational presentation on the tour will be the Blacks Run Greenway Partnership, a Harrisonburg group involved in their own effort to revitalize Blacks Run.

The BRGP is a team of Harrisonburg public officials and private citizens that are pushing for the construction of a "greenway" along much of the Harrisonburg section of Blacks Run, according to Todd Hedinger, a BRGP member.  This "linear park," as Hedinger describes it, would run adjacent to Blacks Run and consist of a series of public walking and biking paths connecting small public park areas.

"It would offer some purely aesthetic types of benefits, some opportunity for water quality improvement and some recreational amenities," said Stacy Turner, director of Community Development and BRGP member.

Todd Hedinger, also a BRGP member, said the proposed greenway would offer many environmental benefits. According to Hedinger, a "riparian buffer zone" is essentially an area around a stream with many plants and shrubs that prevent erosion and filter out pollutants from water running into the stream.

"The way things are now along most of Blacks Run is horrible," Hedinger said. "The greenway would be the most cost-effective way for the city to deal with environmental quality issues that will be coming down the road."

The group hopes to get much of the funding for the project from private sources and public grants, according to Hedinger. They already have received a grant of $11,500 from the Virginia Department of Forestry and expect to receive another this year, Hedinger said.

Scott Jost, an art professor at Eastern Mennonite University, has completed a photo documentary and interview project about Blacks Run entitled "Blacks Run: An American Stream."

Jost said his collection of photographs captures the various faces of the stream, presented with comments from local residents about the stream's history, degradation and possible renewal.
"I found that a lot of different people care about the stream, but they care about it in different ways," Jost said. Before any plans are finalized, the BRGP plans to speak individually with every property owner in the park's immediate area, which Jost estimated to be about 150 people.

The group has been eliciting public opinion through informal surveys, public meetings and various presentations in the community. 

"We're really trying to hear what people have to say about having a greenway and accommodate their opinions as much as possible," Jost said.

Overall, Jost said the public response has been very positive. "Greenways improve the town and people love them," he said, adding that there is a possible boost to downtown revitalization efforts. "Often times little businesses tend to pop up along the greenway route," he said.

"[A greenway] is a focus of community pride, a place where people can meet each other and also a way to improve the health of the stream," Jost said.

Anyone interested in the project can find more information at the group's Web site, www.blacksrungreenway.org.