An Uphill Battle Worth Fighting
Climate change stacks the against the workers at Sandy Creek Park. But they’re up for the challenge.
By Caroline Barnes
As the February rain pours on the row of unused mowing equipment outside his workshop, Gilberto “Berto” Foseca works in the glow of a single bare lightbulb that hangs above him. His hands and eyes never rest, attempting to single out the issue affecting his 11-foot mower. The machine dwarfs his small frame in the middle of the large building at Sandy Creek Park. His uniform resembles a 20th century air force jumpsuit, but his tag reads Central Services.
Foseca has worked outdoors his whole career, 11 years and running at Sandy Creek Park & Nature Center, and for even longer before in the national forests of Costa Rica, his homeland. As for the work, it never ends. No matter the time of year or weather, there are always multiple tasks on his to-do list. In the summer, grass needs to be mowed. In the fall, leaves need to be blown and mulch needs to be laid. When it rains, equipment can be fixed. But the endless toil has never been a source of complaint for Foseca. It is certainly a behind-the-scenes job that not many might be up for. But Foseca is not alone.
The Leisure Services Department of Athens-Clarke County employs dozens of workers, many of whom have worked there for years. It is certainly a more hands-on department, requiring workers to go out to the parks, greenways and community centers they manage. But, when working for your community in such a tangible, and not to mention fun, way, it seems they feel motivated to continue doing so.
Sandy Creek Park is one of 11 parks managed by the department, and, according to the director Kent Kilpatrick, is also one of their most lucrative and beloved parks. It has had a long, winding history as well.
In 1954 the passing of the Watershed and Flood Prevention Act created a national awareness of the issue. The land that is now the park was set aside when the county realized their need for “watershed management” as the area continued to grow. Soon, through collaboration of the local and federal governments and the Soil Conservation Committee (SCC), the roughly 216 acre Lake Chapman was created by damming Sandy Creek, which ran through what was previously rural farmland.
In the 1970s, the SCC and the Clarke County government partnered to turn the area around the lake into what Kilpatrick calls a “resource based park”. This restricts the uses of the land and prohibits certain activities such as the use of gasoline-powered boats in the lake or “developing competitive athletic fields”, which both cause pollution, in order to protect the land and especially the lake itself.
The park and the county’s government have evolved since, with the joining of the Athens and Clarke counties and more recreation activities available for visitors. Since being completed and open to the public in 1981, Sandy Creek has not only attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors but has been an important environmental factor in the county because of it’s original purpose. Robert Betz, the park’s supervisor, says that the lake is still considered a backup drinking water source, and therefore has been kept to cleaner standards as a result. Also, the park serves as a great location for education and research, including water and ecological testing by the University of Georgia.
A main issue when running a park or outdoor facility is how easily changes in the climate affect your operations. According to States at Risk, a project aimed at showing how each U.S. state will be affected by climate change, three of the top 5 issues Georgia is facing include drought, rising sea levels, and inland flooding. They also predict that by 2050, the number of days of dangerous heat will have risen from 20 to 90.
According to Betz, these changes have already affected the park. Most notably, long droughts and heat followed by extreme storms continue to cause erosion and flooding throughout the park’s trails, grassy areas and beach.
So despite its success and support, the park has not come without serious issues. Betz says the lake is in desperate need of dredging because of sediment erosion into the lake, and requires an enormous amount of time, equipment, and money to carry out, along with the consideration of ecological risks. He says they also deal with bad forest health, heavy trail erosion due to large rainstorms, and the wear that comes along with such a large volume of visitors, not to mention a smaller staff with a consistently heavy workload. But the department has not lost hope, and they continue to have the community’s and government’s support.
A main example of community support and department struggles is the budget. According to Kilpatrick, there have been a few recent cutbacks, notably in 2008 during the recession, that have affected the park’s management.
He says, “Sandy Creek Park “was very well managed, had a lot of resources, but over time, the same budget reductions slowly dwindle away all those resources,”
Because of smaller resources, staff changes were made, including less full-time workers, and no more maintenance staff dedicated to certain locations such as Sandy Creek Park. The audio piece below puts the budget into more context, including the park’s history and community focus.
But another factor accounts for part of the department’s endurance.
About every nine years, departments throughout the county government propose SPLOST projects to the Citizen Advisory Committee (CAC) to potentially complete in the coming years. SPLOST stands for “Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax,” meaning the funding comes from a penny sales tax program.
Of the 132 initial SPLOST 2020 proposals submitted by the deadline last November 11, the CAC has narrowed them down to 34, twelve of which were proposed by the Leisure Services Department. According to Betz, these proposals are a great way to get the community’s attention and get them excited about the parks, that people respond in support because it’s more fun voting to fund a park renovation than repairing infrastructure or pedestrian safety improvement.
Betz explains that the SPLOST projects stand completely separate from their general budget that is approved by the mayor and commission each year, but make a big difference in improving the parks in a way that is normally beyond their capacity. Previous enacted SPLOST projects from the department include the Sandy Creek Park Renovations Phase 1 and the Firefly Trail Project. The Sandy Creek Park Renovations Phase 2 is still in the running for the 2020 projects, and involves lakeside and swim area improvements which Betz emphasized is one of their most important current issues.
Another group that portrays the resilience of the department is Trails & Open Spaces. They work within Leisure Services to maintain and repair all the trails at the eleven parks under their control. Rose West, the group’s supervisor, says their main issue is the “increased workload without many additional staff hours. This means their crew of five full and part time employees maintain dozens of miles of trails on their own.
West says all they can do is “try to use our time as efficiently as possible to take care of what we need to with the time we have.”
Her positive outlook is not for nothing. Sandy Creek Park consistently brings in around 100,000 visitors a year, and is one of the area’s most beloved parks according to Kilpatrick.
Athens resident Lauren Gingerella is one example of how well-loved the park remains. She and her one-year-old lab-hound mix named Lundi frequently come to enjoy one of the 5 fenced in dog parks at Sandy Creek. She appreciates how much space is dedicated to the dog parks, and appreciates the care taken to maintain it.
According to Kilpatrick, the department does poll their visitors regularly about their parks, but I decided to create my own survey. I was curious about who goes to the park, how often, and why. And the findings were surprising.
Although my survey did poll mostly students, this differs with the park’s attendance of majority locals. Also, many students had never been to the park, and some had never heard of it. (This is reflected in the the votes for “1” in the scale below)
But no matter if they had been to the park, responders where aware of the draws to the park, such as the trails and events, and supportive of its existence. Among those who had visited, they noted not only the relaxing and fun atmosphere, but how well-kept it is.
So, despite the odds facing the team of people who carry the load of maintaining over 1,000 acres of land and lake at a time of looming climate crisis, they continue to put in the effort.
“We’ve got a great group of professional staff, and they’re hired because of their expertise and knowledge in what they do, so I trust a lot of their ideas and recommendations,” Kilpatrick says.
