“By the end of the morning, the privet and ivy had been replaced and a healthy forest restored.”

It was late in the day, Thursday, September 26, when the winds of Hurricane Helene began to pick up and the rain, which had been steady but manageable for hours, built to a relentless downpour.

With it, the waters of Legacy Park’s Postal Pond began to swell, pounding its muddy banks until the earthen dam holding everything together gave way.

In time, a total of three dams were breached, unleashing a flood of water downstream towards Katie Kerr Drive, the ring road separating Legacy Park from acres of tidy, well-kept homes lying just beyond.

But the waters never arrived. Instead, they seemingly disappeared. Dispersed and absorbed by an environmental marvel and key contributor to the natural diversity of the surrounding forest:

Legacy’s wetlands.

Wetlands receive and absorb floodwater, filtering it in the process.

Natural Systems in the Face of Modernity

Wetlands weren’t always so valued.

For years, they were seen by engineers as something to be fixed — their propensity to flood a weakness rather than a strength. Wetlands were often drained for development or agriculture. Streams were converted to concrete channels with the intention of speeding stormwater away rather than allowing it to transcend riverbanks and spread out, robbing the landscape of the rich biodiversity inherent in natural systems.

At Legacy Park, the wetlands became a trash dump.

This lasted for decades, an undervalued ecological asset sullied by the discarded remnants of a society in perpetual motion. But today that energy is instead being harnessed to reverse the damage and, in the years since the City of Decatur took possession of the property, thousands of pounds of litter have been removed from the Legacy forest and stream bed.

These efforts, powered primarily by volunteers, have increasingly improved the health of the forest and have served as a prerequisite for restoration of the wetlands, improving their innate capacity to improve water quality, protect against floods, and provide habitat for all manner of plants and animals.

A trash pile in the Legacy forest, since removed.

Wetlands Restored

On Saturday morning, October 12, 33 volunteers from Davidson College Atlanta Alumni Chapter, the Decatur Rotary Club, Trees Atlanta, and the surrounding neighborhood descended on the Legacy forest to dig out invasives that have choked out healthy plantings and replace them with 100 native wetland plants.

Trees Atlanta's Hayden Wyatt and the City of Decatur's Urban Naturalist Allison Ericson helped identify invasives to remove, select native plants that could thrive in riparian areas, and teach volunteers how to break up the root balls to allow the plants to flourish. 

"We had a terrific experience!,” said volunteer Sue McAvoy, a 1977 Davidson graduate. “By the end of the morning, the privet and ivy had been replaced and a healthy forest restored.”

This new native vegetation, installed along the wetland area, is key to stabilizing the stream bank, providing food for wildlife, and creating a calm and aesthetically welcoming environment for the community to learn more about the importance of wetland areas.

But there’s still work to do to fully transform this ecological marvel.

“In time, we’ll create a welcoming entrance trail to the wetland area,” says Legacy Decatur executive director Madeleine Henner, “with stones to mark the path. We’ll continue clearing the invasive plants, and will plant hundreds more natives along the stream bank and in the wetland areas.”

The next wetlands work days are Saturday, November 9th and Saturday, December 7th, each from 9:00am to noon. Make plans now to join us.

Volunteers add native plants to the wetlands area.

PHOTOS: © Legacy Decatur

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