Joe Neal provides report on workday at Wilson Spring nature area

Joe Neal's report on February 28, 2009, workday at Wilson Spring nature area
Joe explains why Fayetteville's original map shows it in Prairie Township, not "woodland township"!

I wasn't there to make photos of the work of the volunteers onsite but chose some photos from a short distance downstream to illustrate what is happening far too rapidly to such land as that on the Audubon property. Joe and the volunteers were trying to restore and maintain the historic character of the land while developers have been trying to turn it all into sterile subdivisions.



Downstream from Wilson Spring along Clabber Creek developments have been planned and approved on much of the wetland prairie but, mercifully, the economic situation has brought a hiatus to construction. In the photos, one can see a wetland-mitigation sign in the riparian zone of the Clabber Creek and a developer's sign touting the nearby Audubon property as a selling point for lots to be built on fill dirt placed in the wetland. The pause in construction and the necessity of new owners going to the Fayetteville Planning Commission with new plans offers a chance to protect more of the valuable fertile and natural water-retaining soil by requiring homes to be built on piers rather than red-dirt and concrete foundations and making many changes for the good of all. As it exists now, this is area can easily meet the prime flood-prevention rule of "keeping the water where it falls."
Joe Neal's report on February 28, 2009, workday at Wilson Spring nature area
Joe explains why Fayetteville's original map shows it in Prairie Township, not woodland township!