and a Tribute to Shel Silverstein
By The Messenger Staff.
Along the north side of Candler Park, right there by the golf course, is an unnamed creek running parallel to the Freedom Park Trail.
It’s a babbling brook for a stretch, adding to the beauty of that part of the biking-walking-running trail. Until late February, however, it didn’t babble entirely. In fact, for a while, the stream was plugged by a series of natural dams, made up of fallen trees and natural debris.
And that backup brought about a gathering of the most extraordinary collection of garbage. This floating trash heap was mostly tucked down in the brush but didn’t go unnoticed. Users of an app known as HAPPiFeet, (part of the City’s Department of Parks and Recreation’s current strategic plan) reported this issue for weeks, along with many ATL311 calls requesting cleanup.
The app is the new and improved way of asking the City for an assist. It’s a handy tool for reporting issues, good and bad, in the City’s parks. Log on and Happi, in that perky way, will ask you for feedback.
“Tell us what made you Happi/SAD today?,” goes the prompt.
Well Happi, lately, it’s mostly been sad, a reporter recently wrote, not only because HappiFeet hasn’t confirmed my previous grumblings about trash in the creek, but mainly because our stream is still clogged with trash. (Paraphrased, due to Happi’s inability or unwillingness to catalog comments.)
That’s all to say, the many conversations with Happi and the 311 resulted in … no action.
This, however, is not a story of bureaucratic inertia, but of victory, of taking the trash by the horns.
Not surprisingly, the Candler Park Conservancy has long been aware of the problems with the stream. The underlying issue is the vegetation that grows in the creek bed or culvert. As CPC’s project’s chair, Amy Stout, explained, “Vegetation in the culvert is good (as long as it isn’t overly obstructing flow) … things have grown up in the culvert over the years. It slows down water and improves filtering/reduces flooding. That is good. But, as you can see, some trees grew that didn’t have anywhere to really grow roots, and then they fell over.”
She went on to explain that large limbs and tree trunks dammed the stream causing the trash backup.
So after some months of inaction by Happi et al., the CPC decided to act, hiring an outside tree company to attack the issue.
So, then it came to be that on a morning late in February, a team of workers freed the stream of the natural dams and got rid of that collection place for garbage.
It’s worth noting, of course, that it’s not CPC’s fault or the City’s fault that litter is strewn in our stream. The City isn’t there to tell us not to toss plastic bottles, cardboard boxes, and paper bags to the ground like there are no garbage cans. That’s on us.
So good for CPC for getting it done. It’s a Happi, ending, you might say.
Still, the City’s deserving of some scolding, wouldn’t you say?
It reminds us of another neglector of trash heaps, our old friend Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout, (no relation) who would not take the garbage out.
So then, with apologies to Shel Silverstein, we give you these lyrics:
The Department of Parks and Recreation, would not take the garbage out,
Of the stream on the North side of Candler Park.
They would mow the grass and watered the lawn
And though the neighbors did scream and shout,
The Department would not take the garbage out.
It did then pile up to the bank,
Water bottles, and other things rank,
Coffee cups, a doggie bone, a big green ball, chunks of styrofoam.
Trash stuffed the creek and matted the surface, covered the plants and blocked its purpose.
At last the garbage reached so far, that it did the fairway mar.
So all the good people of the neighborhood left by car,
And no one would come to the park to play.
So finally, the City of Atlanta’s Department of Parks and Recreation would say,
OK, OK, already, we’ll take the garbage away.
But then, of course, there was much to tell
Of how the garbage reached from Ponce to Oakdale.
No one had ever seen trash on such a scale
For all the other piles did pale
In comparison, to the stream on the north side of Candler Park.
Moral: Please don’t litter.