Five Mile Creek: Responding to Legacies of the Past, and Creating a Legacy for the Future

This is a story about the natural beauty, long-standing abuse, natural resilience, and the possibility, even likelihood, of the redemption and restoration of Five Mile Creek, located in the Black Warrior River Watershed just north of Birmingham.

I recently had the fascinating pleasure of paddling a stretch of Five Mile Creek that ends at the confluence with the Locust Fork River. I was graciously invited by Beth Maynor Young, conservation photographer extraordinaire, to join her and a few excellent paddle-mates on an exploration of this long-abused but struggling to recover waterway. We met our friendly and enthusiastic outfitters, Charles and Mike from Five Mile Creek Canoe & Co. in Brookside (www.canoe5mile.com), and we were on our way.

Our fellow explorers included Hunter Nichols, an Auburn University undergraduate and talented multimedia artist in his own right, James Lowery, a dedicated conservationist with a penchant for geology who serves on the boards of three Alabama conservation organizations, and Cindy Lowry, Executive Director of the Alabama Rivers Alliance, an organization dedicated to the restoration and protection of Alabama’s bountiful heritage of flowing water. Cindy was my canoe-mate, and she deftly dodged and deflected the various obstacles I steered us into.

Visually, I found two things striking, and they are captured in the accompanying photos.

 

On a larger landscape scale, it looked and felt like we were deep in the woods. The banks were thick and green with trees and shrubs, no buildings to be seen anywhere. And aside from crossing under power lines and occasionally hearing traffic, it felt, sounded, and looked quiet, scenic and natural.

Looking a little closer, the river shows signs of distress and abuse. The river bottom, which in its natural state should be rocky, is covered with gravel and sand washed into the river somewhere upstream. Rocks do jut up from the bottom, and we had to watch out and steer around them when we saw riffles in the flowing water. Only some of the rocks weren’t rocks at all. They were tires: car tires, truck tires, tractor tires. TIres, tires, tires. I’ve never seen so many tires in a nice looking stream from a canoe. (And I know that a lot of tires have already been removed!)

There was also trash in the river and on the banks: bottles, cups, cans, styrofoam bits, basketballs, soccer balls, balls of uncertain purpose, even a fully inflated raft lodged in a tangle of fallen trees. Some of the nice looking green shrubs were privet, a not so nice invasive species that out-competes native plants, reduces habitat, and weakens the local ecosystem.

Five Mile Creek also bears the scars and shadows from decades of industrial pollution that earned it the name “Creosote Creek,” and from past and present impact from acid mine drainage and stormwater runoff from streets and rooftops and yards that adds nutrients, toxics, pathogens, and sediment to the river.

In spite of all this, Five Mile Creek remains a living river. Nature’s resilience, when given half a chance, will create this river anew. And nature is getting an impressive helping hand from individuals, groups, communities, businesses, government, and other organizations, who see the possibilities for this living river, and who have come together to form the Five Mile Creek Greenway Partnership. You can read all about it at www.cawaco.org/fivemilecreek and it is well worth a visit to this site.  Here is the Partnership’s mission statement:     

“The purpose of the Five Mile Creek Greenway Partnership is to promote and facilitate coordinated and cohesive planning, development, and maintenance of a network of greenways, parks, trails and points of interest along the Five Mile Creek Corridor.”

What’s happening along the Five Mile Creek Corridor is a powerful example of what can occur when a diverse group of individuals and organizations come together to solve community problems and commit to creating the common good for the future. This is the practice of participatory democracy at its best and hints at what can be accomplished on every scale when people commit to work together in this way. 

Developing a shared vision of what is possible, learning and acting together in ways that build trust, respect, and a shared understanding of issues and approaches, and thinking systemically to see how everything connects with everything else, the Partnership is building the foundation for a sustainable future. 

The greenways project can serve as the backbone for comprehensive, basin-wide planning that protects the “green infrastructure,” the natural systems that provide, free of charge, enormous economic and ecological functions and benefits. Knowing which areas are particularly important ecologically, it is possible to practice “smart growth” by directing growth and development into areas that can support them without degrading the value of the natural systems that protect water quality and make life so much richer and healthier for everyone. Not to mention, this approach will protect and enhance in perpetuity all that the Partnership is working so hard to reestablish and improve. 

The importance of this work cannot be overstated. What W.H. Auden wrote in First Things First is true, and affirms the fundamental importance of restoring the Five Mile Creek system: “Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.” At the same time, it is love of water and love of place and love for future generations that gives energy and power to this effort in the first place.

See you on the river!

Mike Kensler