Speech at ECWA's 20th Year Celebration

20 years after its founding, the Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association threw a party as part of its annual meeting. They invited me to address the membership, to tell my story. Below is what I came up with to say. More on the organization's history can be found at this link, and I did a brief writeup on the event at my Princeton nature blog. 

SPEECH AT ECWA’S 2019 ANNUAL MEETING AND 20^TH YEAR CELEBRATION

Steve Hiltner, founder of ECWA

NOV. 17, 2019

 Hi. My name is Steve Hiltner, and I founded ECWA 20 years ago. What I will aim to do in my ten minutes is to tell you something about my own story and about ECWA's early years.

I'd like to begin with a show of hands if I may. How many of you grew up in Durham? (a few hands went up) And how many of you moved here from somewhere else? (the great majority of the audience raised their hands) Now, I would say, and I think you'd agree, that Durham has a special feel that is deeply rooted and enduring. But of what is that feeling made, if so many of us began our lives somewhere else? That is one of the enigmas of Durham. All I can say is that though I grew up in Wisconsin and Michigan, I didn't feel like I'd found my home until I moved to Durham. And that feeling hasn't changed since I left, even though I'm happy in the town where I now live.

Standing here, I feel joy in all the faces I recognize, but also in all of you who I have yet to meet. If there are many of you I don't know, it is a testament to the fact that I am not alone in being hard-wired to Ellerbe Creek. Though it is fortuitous in many ways that I came to Durham, it is equally fortuitous that I left, because it made more room for others to develop a similarly deep connection to ECWA and the watershed, others much better than I at building the organization that I had begun.

My story is in some ways an immigrant's story. We think of immigrants as those who move from one country to another, but it is also true that even we native borns take on the aspect of an immigrant when we move from one town, or one state, to another.

When I moved to Durham, I had no ambitions other than to explore the new territory. I knew nothing about nonprofits, and had little awareness of watersheds. The only organization I had ever led was an 8-piece jazz-latin ensemble. Mostly I was grateful to my wife, Gabriela, for having extracted me from my life in Ann Arbor, a town I liked very much, but where I didn't feel particularly useful. As a plant person, I had a desire only to bloom where I was being transplanted. Gabriela was beginning her career as an professor at Duke University. In Michigan, I had collected a couple degrees in botany and water quality, had played saxophone in jazz bands, worked part time as a horticulturist, had taught piano to kids. When we moved to Durham, I had no particular career, but I did have for the first time in my life a clear purpose for being here on earth, as father to our new daughter, Sofia, born just two weeks prior.

Fatherhood was fortuitous in many ways. I like to think of my daughters as good luck charms. It was Sofia who led me to the creek, and later led me to the people who would help to get the organization going. And it was my wife's job as a professor that provided me with some latitude to pursue less remunerative dreams. What I brought to Durham, as an immigrant of sorts, was fresh eyes. Once I discovered Ellerbe Creek, I could see it not as the ditch so many considered it to be, but as a place of undiscovered beauty and possibility.

Back then, the creek often flowed brown with sediment when it rained. In the late 1990s it was sustaining deep wounds in the headwaters, where the DOT was beginning to widen I-85. I didn't know what to do about that. At first I hardly knew where Ellerbe Creek came from or went. But in my new neighborhood, I found things I wanted to do. 

As a botanist, I could see that the parks and abandoned floodplains along the creek had become dominated by invasive species, and lacked many of the beautiful native plants I was encountering in my walks with Sofie at NC Botanical Gardens and at the Blomquist Gardens at Duke University.

It was my daughter Sofie who got me making frequent visits to Indian Trail Park, and it wasn't long before I began planting what I called "wetland gardens" in the wetter, sunnier areas of the park. These clusterings of native wildflowers were appreciated by others in the neighborhood, and I began wondering where else I could plant them. At some point, I became aware that the creek flowing through the park was called Ellerbe Creek. I discovered a woodlot across the road from the park, and got the idea of replacing its tangled jungle of invasive vines with native plantings and trails. 

Over time, I began to see how Ellerbe Creek could become a unifying element in Durham, connecting diverse neighborhoods and peoples to one another, and how the creek's many abandoned floodplains could be turned into mini nature preserves. I wanted to bring the beauty I had encountered along the Eno and in botanical gardens into the neighborhoods where people live.

I searched for another organization that would show interest in preserving the undeveloped lands along Ellerbe Creek, but the small urban parcels did not fit the interests or mission of any other organization. It was like the story of The Little Engine That Could. The only way for the vision to become reality was to start a new organization.

Ellerbe Creek, and the power of the vision it spurred in me, presented a great personal dilemma. What I had brought to Durham was different forms of love: love of family, love of plants, love of music, words, and learning, but I had yet to develop a deep love of people. And yet it was people I would need in order to create places for plants to flourish along the creek. Thus, the evolution of ECWA involved also an evolution in me, from introvert to someone who became engaged in the community. I'm sure many of you have experienced your own personal transformations as well, through community work.

When a nonprofit starts out, it survives on a thread, on a shoestring. Each new board member, and you know who you are or were, is a godsend. Collaborators are so important. Taking on a community project alone seldom happens because it feels so very lonely. 

I do want to at least speak some of the names of the people and organizations that made it possible to turn an idea into an organization and sustain it through its fragile early years.

The Watts Hospital Hillandale Neighborhood Association and the Durham Environmental Affairs Board were early sources of inspiration and mentoring. The retired Duke botanist Lewis Edward Anderson and his wife donated a key acre of land, the value of which allowed us to get a Durham County Matching Grant to acquire our first nature preserve. Leslie Nydick helped apply for nonprofit status. Mike Shiflett and Don Moffitt were among the many neighbors who were early supporters. Key early board members were Lou Perron and David Lilley, followed by Steve Williams, Robin Kirk, and Chad Hallyburton. Another generation began with Larry Brockman, Jane Finch, and Perry Sugg. And then came webmaster Tony Tchopp, Julie Holmes, our treasured treasurer Candace Turney, and naturalist extraordinaire Josh Rose.

Like the vision for Ellerbe Creek, ECWA's first paid staff position also grew out of caring for wetland gardens in Indian Trail Park. One day, when I was weeding one of the native gardens, a woman named Barbara Newborg, who liked to walk along the creek, came by and asked me "Does anyone pay you to do this?" I said no. She happened to have a foundation, and offered to pay me $10,000 a year for my work. Dr. Newborg was our first angel donor, and her BIN Foundation continues to give to this day.

What I left behind in Durham, along with a lot of friends and a city where I had felt more at home than anywhere else in my life, was a watershed association, of course, but also a lot of plants that I had been taking care of in the parks and preserves. I am forever grateful to Larry, Steve Cohn, Chris Dreps and all the others who have done so much to help ECWA prosper and grow since then. And I am so very grateful as well to Cynthie Kulstad, Perry Sugg, and others who have tended to the many plantings and habitats--the wetlands, piedmont prairies, and oak savannas whose continued health, diversity, and ongoing restoration owes to their knowledge and hard-wired caring. 

I am in some ways, real and metaphorical, a scavenger, taking an interest in what the rest of the world has deemed unworthy of attention. My muse composts experience and turns it into music and writing. Wherever I live, I look for gaps to fill in the community, and try to make something special out of what has been abandoned. One of those abandoned things was Ellerbe Creek. 

Yesterday I met ECWA's new executive director, Rickie White. Appropriately enough, we met on Durham city's West Ellerbee Creek Trail, which has played such an important role in ECWA's growth. Talking to Rickie, and seeing all of you here today, I feel it is safe to say that the Ellerbe Creek watershed is abandoned no more, is receiving the love and attention it so richly deserves, and is giving back to us in abundance. 

ECWA Began as a Wetland Garden in Indian Trail Park

There are many origins for a creek and for a watershed association. To a considerable extent, the Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association began as a garden planted in the floodplain of a city park that straddles the creek. In 1996, when our daughter Sofia was still in her first year, we bought a house near Indian Trail Park, and I would often take her there to play. Being a botanist and a gardener, I was struck by how few native plants were growing in the park. While nonnatives like english ivy and multiflora rose were thriving, it seemed like a majority of native plants had for the most part been relegated to places one had to drive to, either in the Blomquist section of Duke Gardens, or at nature preserves outside of town. I wanted them to grow where people could see them every day, so I got permission from the city, went to plant sales and began planting native shrubs and wildflowers at Indian Trail Park.

Of course, what followed was a very long drought, during which I became a one-man bucket brigade, as the new plants wilted in the heat. Those that survived, I observed, were the ones planted in wet, sunny places, away from greedy tree roots and where the soil collected a reservoir of moisture that plants could draw from during droughts.

Some areas of lawn in this floodplain park were wet for such long periods that they were of little use for recreation. The mowing crews struggled through the mud, and in fact some native wetland plants like sedges and soft rush were already growing there, needing only to be left unmowed to achieve their attractive mature forms.

These were the spots I arranged with the city to stop mowing, while I replaced the monotonous turfgrass with native sedges and the sorts of floodplain wildflowers that don't mind periodic inundation.

I happen to be hardwired to care for a garden the way a parent cares for a child. That steady application of attention, along with an increasing awareness of all the beautiful native plants I saw growing in the wild and at the NC Botanical Garden and Blomquist Gardens, led to some very attractive and diverse wetland gardens at Indian Trail Park.

It mattered little how rich the soil was. The plants largely built themselves out of air, sun, and water. In fact, poor clay soil was ideal, causing the water to linger and discouraging most weeds. By the time the next drought came, the plants had rooted themselves deeply and could tap into the underground reservoir of moisture accumulated from previous rains.

The first wetland garden was planted next to the park's playground, where I could tend to it while keeping an eye on Sofie. Joe-Pye-Weed, lizard's tail, jewelweed, groundnut--these were informal gardens but could be kept attractive if well weeded and given a clean boundary.

Other parents in the park took an interest, and the "I" shifted more towards "we", as others helped tend to the gardens on periodic workdays.

They say that wetlands were common in pre-colonial America, so it makes sense that there are so many native wildflowers adapted to grow in wet habitats. Many of them are tall: Joe-Pye, wild senna, ironweed, Hibiscus,

and boneset,

After a couple years we hatched the idea to add bluebird houses, which were quickly utilized by purple finches and chickadees. In the spring, I'd walk by a birdhouse to pull a weed and hear the commotion of expectant hatchlings thinking a meal was coming.

Though lawns are an important part of parks, the wetland gardens hosted all sorts of life not found in a lawn. One day I encountered the beautiful web of an Argiope spider, with a design woven in that was almost word-like, and it occurred to me that E.B. White might have gotten his idea for Charlotte from such a spider.

Another discovery was how attractive a sedge could be. For those who don't know what a sedge is, it is a grasslike plant with triangular stems. "Sedges have edges" is the memorable way to describe the way a sedge feels when you twirl its stem between your fingers. They typically grow wild and unnoticed in ditches or next to streams. Though they generate no color other than green, their seedheads have different shapes, and in the spring they form attractive vaselike shapes that provide a rich texture for the surrounding wildflowers. This particular one is called fox sedge, and behind it is a nodding white flower called lizards tail.

All of this was going very well. I had gotten the gardens to thrive, and once they were thick with natives there was much less weeding to be done. People would tell me how much they liked seeing the gardens growing and changing, one day to the next.

And then one spring day, when the sedges had achieved their lush forms and the gardens were rich with the promise of another summer of blooms, I arrived in the park to find one of the gardens mowed down. It was like a punch to the gut. Undoubtedly, someone new on the mowing crew had mistaken the garden for a weed patch. It was a shocking reminder that I was growing a garden on land that was not mine, and that those charged with maintaining parks tend to see their world as consisting of trees and turf, with little inbetween.

I learned a lesson. Visual cues needed to be more clear. As we expanded the gardens, I put in stakes to signal that the sometimes subtle plantings were intentional and to be left unmowed.

Fortunately, the plants grew back after that first traumatic mowing. Accidental mowing is a temporary setback. Over the years, other public or private raingardens I've planted have been traumatized one way or another, and though such traumas still impact me viscerally, none has equaled that first punch to the gut. I have become toughened, my emotional connection protected by a thicker skin.

The same thinking that went into creating and tending to these wetland gardens at Indian Trail Park was ultimately extended to the whole Ellerbe Creek watershed. Find special places, protect and tend them for their distinctive native habitats, and build trails the public can enjoy. Integrate aesthetics and utility. Over time, through a lot of work and a lot of support by a lot of people, a "string of pearls" has evolved, as urban preserves have proliferated along the length of the creek. Wetland gardens were succeeded by stormwater wetlands and large-scale stream restorations, and now a big wetland planned for the site of the former Duke Diet and Fitness Center.

Other important goals, like improving the quality of the creek's water, have gained more attention along the way, but even these remain deeply connected to the plant world that holds the soil and captures the rain.

Stormwater and The Many Tributaries of ECWA

A creek has many beginnings, many tributaries that feed it, and so does a watershed association like ECWA. Some of those "tributaries" are pretty far down the main stem. ECWA had already been around for four years when I started wondering where the water from my roof goes. The downspouts fed into underground pipes, but there were no visible outlets for those pipes. Did the water just disappear somehow? I directed a hose down into those underground pipes, and then started scouting around the yard for where the water might come out. One of them didn't seem to resurface anywhere. After much searching, I finally found the water bubbling up one door down, in my neighbor's yard close to the street.

All that underground piping didn't seem to be working very well, and even if it did work well, it would serve primarily to expedite the water's flow off of the property, where the water then became someone else's problem as it added to flooding along Ellerbe Creek. The question became how to capture and utilize the water falling from our house's roof, so that it didn't add to downstream floods.

I did some calculations and realized that the popular rainbarrels only hold about 75 gallons of water, but my roof was generating thousands of gallons even in a one or two inch rain. What to do? I went to a farm supply store outside of town, and bought a couple cisterns, each of which would hold 200 gallons. That was a start, but even they weren't capturing all the water from their respective downspouts, and in reality I wasn't really making use of the water. I could save it for times of drought, but that would mean that the cisterns weren't empty to receive water from the next rain. And they weren't the prettiest things to look at.

Being an armchair inventor, I conceived of a rainbarrel that was inflatable rather than rigid, and would lie flat along the foundation of the house, swelling like the Michelin Man during rains, then would slowly drop back down out of sight behind the shrubbery as it released the captured water back into the yard over the next few days. Those imaginings were back in 2003, and as it turns out, these sorts of inflatable cisterns exist, and are given names like "water bladders" and "collapsible water tanks."

Ultimately, I shifted away from rainbarrels and cisterns, and began looking at how I could integrate water storage into the landscape. The result was that a couple downspouts got replumbed to direct water away from the house and into a backyard minipond.

The pond had more capacity than a cistern, and became an attractive feature in the landscape, feeding the plantings around it. Though most gardeners don't like thick clay, in this case the clay acted as a natural lining, retaining enough water to sustain the guppy-like mosquito fish that made sure no mosquitoes could breed there. The pond created a stable gradient of moisture that allowed for greater plant diversity. Some kinds of plants preferred to be in the water, others at the edge, while others preferred to be perched on the berm where the ground was drier.

Another approach, basically a raingarden, is to dig a depression in the ground that's only a few inches deep, and direct runoff into that. Within a few days, the collected water either infiltrates into the ground or evaporates, preventing mosquito larvae from maturing. Instead of breeding mosquitoes, it serves as a mosquito trap, foiling their reproduction, while creating a reservoir of water in the surrounding soil to sustain trees and other plants in the yard through any drought that comes along.

Floods, like climate change, are collectively created, with water contributed from every roof and road in a city. The aim was to slow down and minimize my home's contribution to urban water problems, and begin seeing stormwater as a resource.

A Little History of ECWA's Early Years

Founded in 1999, ECWA turns 20 this year. In recognition, the story of the Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association's founding and early years has just been added to this website.

In this photo from the early days, Sofia Hiltner draws a meandering creek along the front walk of her home in the Watts Hospital-Hillandale neighborhood. The founder's first encounters with Ellerbe Creek were in the park where he took Sofie to play.