What? Workshop displaying Best Management Practices for Improving Water QualityWhen? Saturday December 1, 10:00 a.m. to noonWhere? Meet at the Pittsboro Library, 158 West Street. Please park on the street. Please call 919.542.8202 to pre-register. There is no charge. What’s wrong with our streams and what can we do about it? On Saturday, December 1 the Cooperative Extension Service in Chatham County will present a workshop on Improving Water Quality from Your Own Backyard. Participants will meet in the parking lot of the Pittsboro Library (158 West St.) at 10:00 to begin a walking tour of Best Management Practices (BMPs) that have been implemented on Robeson Creek in Pittsboro. You are requested to park on the street. Robeson Creek is polluted and is under state mandated cleanup strategies. Since Robeson Creek originates in largely forested areas north and west of Pittsboro and flows through town on its way to Jordan Lake, human activities are blamed for many of its problems. Karen Hall of NC State University’s Water Quality Group will provide an overview of Robeson Creek including where it flows, reasons for its polluted status, and ways it can be improved. Al Cooke, Extension Agent in Chatham County will discuss impacts of activities that people take in their own yards and ways to reduce undesirable inputs into streams. Simple practices such as maintaining vegetative cover and managing fertilizer and water can make a difference. Jon Hathaway, Extension Associate with NC State’s Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, will present guidelines on how residents can improve water quality by installing rain gardens. A rain garden is a shallow depression in the ground that captures runoff from driveways or roofs and allows the water to soak into the ground rather than running across roads, capturing pollutants, and delivering them to a stream. Ornamental plants are selected for their capacity to tolerate wet soil conditions. Plants and soil work together to absorb and filter pollutants and deliver cleaner water through the ground to nearby streams. Rain gardens also reduce flooding by sending water back into the soil rather than to the street. Following these brief presentations, the instructors will lead a walking tour of Best Management Practices that have been implemented on Robeson Creek in Pittsboro. With funding from EPA, Karen Hall has headed installation of these BMPs that are designed to be part of the solution to water quality problems in the creek. Participants are encouraged to dress for outdoor walking.
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