Duke to Dedicate Research and Teaching 'SWAMP' on May 2
Fourteen-acre Steam and Wetland Assessment Management Park will help control storm water runoff and protect drinking water supplies downstream in Jordan Lake
Duke University officials will dedicate the aptly named Stream and Wetland Assessment Management Park (SWAMP) at 11 a.m. Wednesday, May 2, in Duke Forest, just off N.C. 751 near the university's West Campus.
SWAMP is a 14-acre restored stream-wetland-lake complex designed to help protect the Triangle's drinking water supply by controlling storm water runoff that drains into the Sandy Creek watershed from the campus and 1,200 surrounding acres.
The site also serves as an outdoor classroom for graduate and undergraduate students, and as a field laboratory for testing new wetland restoration technologies and studying biological diversity, hydrology, mosquito control, water quality, invasive plant species and other issues.
"Our goal was to re-create an ecosystem similar to what you would have found here 75 to 100 years ago," said Curtis J. Richardson, director of the Duke University Wetland Center and professor of resource ecology at Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences.
Storm runoff containing heavy concentrations of sediment, nitrogen, phosphorus and other urban pollutants drains into Sandy Creek. The creek, a tributary of New Hope Creek, meets all state pollution standards when it enters northern Durham County but often has been in violation by the time it left southern Durham County, bound for Jordan Lake, part of the Triangle's drinking water reservoir.
"By restoring the natural stream contours and floodplain that used to be here before the onslaught of urban development, we have re-created a healthy wetland ecosystem that can sop up pollutants and improve wildlife habitat," Richardson said. "What we learn here will benefit many wetlands and watersheds nationwide."
Scientists and students at the Wetland Center and Nicholas School, as well as from Duke's biology department and its Pratt School of Engineering, have worked on the project for more than three years. They re-contoured and replanted the creek's heavily eroded, silt-clogged streambed and its banks, restored a riparian wetland along the floodplain, built a new wetland, and built a storm water reservoir and earthen dam to replace an old dam that was in disrepair.
At the dedication, Richardson will present findings about the beneficial environmental effects SWAMP already is having and discuss future plans for expanding the site. Duke President Richard H. Brodhead and Executive Vice President Tallman Trask III, along with William H. Schlesinger, dean of the Nicholas School, also will speak. Representatives of the project's major supporting agencies will also be in attendance.
Agencies and organizations providing funding or in-kind support for SWAMP include the Clean Water Management Trust Fund, City of Durham, Durham Soil and Water Conservation District, National Science Foundation, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, New Hope Creek Corridor Committee, N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources, N.C. Ecosystem Enhancement Program, U.S. Department of Agriculture, N.C. Water Resources Development Grant Program, Duke University and the Duke University Wetland Center Case Studies Endowment.