ESM: Blackwater Creek, Oct 19-22, 2009

Latest News: ESM is complete!

From October 19-22, volunteers from the Lynchburg area participated in the James River Association’s Extreme Stream Makeover 2009: Blackwater Creek. This year’s makeover encompassed the entire Blackwater Creek watershed, reaching into parts of the City of Lynchburg as well as Bedford and Campbell Counties. Volunteers worked on a variety of projects including building rain gardens and BayScapes, buffer planting, a detention pond retrofit, streambank stabilization and trash collection.

Over the course of the week, we worked with 396 volunteers including 294 students from 7 schools ranging in age from 4th grade to college. We completed 7 projects in 4 different locations and planted a total of 1857 plants. Our projects in the City included a stormwater pond retrofit project at a shopping center, the construction of a rain garden and buffer planting at Peaks View Park. In Campbell County we completed a major streambank stabilization project. This project included the grading and replanting of 75 linear feet of stream bank. Our Bedford County projects included the construction of a BayScape and educational garden at Jefferson Forest High School.

Funding for this year’s project was provided by Altria, the Center for Watershed Protection, The Easley Foundation, Honeywell, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, The Royal Bank of Canada and Waste Management. Our partners on this year’s project included the City of Lynchburg, Bedford County, Campbell County, Lynchburg College, and the Center for Watershed Protection, as well as numerous local businesses, contractors, developers and landscapers that provided much needed in-kind support for the project.