Cahaba River Society staff, board and volunteers are supporting efforts by many groups to improve public access to the River at the Grants Mill Cahaba Blueway site and to restore eroded areas of the riverbank.
On November 30, Cahaba River Society, the Little Garden Club, the Birmingham Botanical Gardens and The Freshwater Land Trust worked together to plant 175 native seedlings on the river bank alongside the Grants Mill Cahaba River Walk Trail.
These native plants were provid ed by Cahaba River Society board member and Stewardship Committee Chair Henry Hughes, former Education Director for the Birmingham Botanical Gardens. All of these 175 seedlings were grown from seed harvested in the upper Cahaba watershed and sourced from local remnant populations of the native forest.Henry started the seeds 2-3 years ago and they were nurtured at the Botanical Gardens since then.
The restoration planting supports a major grant-funded project by Freshwater Land Trust (thank you!) to stabilize a heavily eroded section of the Cahaba's riverbank. It is very important for river lovers to remain on paths and stay off of the bank between the bridge and the concrete slab to protect the plants and stabilization project. We still see people dragging their canoes and kayaks over the plants! There is a better canoe launch about 100 feet further down the sidewalk that is much easier to use and protects the River. It was built by The Nature Conservancy and funded by The Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham (thank you!). Everyone, for the River's sake, use that launch!
Many thanks to the members of the Little Garden Club who planted these numerous seedlings! Our deepest thanks also to University of Alabama Center for Economic Development and the Cahaba Blueway partnership for placing the Cahaba Blueway signs at the access, to the City of Irondale for improving the parking lot, drainage and fencing, and installing the signs, and to Ginny Brown for educating site users, raising crowd-sourced funds to place solid, aesthetically-pleasing trash bins and improve site landscaping, and many other ways she is a personal steward of the Grants Mill access.
Learn more about the Cahaba River Society by visiting their website and facebook page.