Health & Fitness
Bubba Gene and trail along the creek
Remember DOT promised to build the South Fork Conservancy's hiking trail from Cheshire Bridge to Lindbergh Drive? Bubba Gene himself is running the show, with an assist from a flock of geese.
A dozen geese paddled up North Fork Peachtree Creek nibbling at freshly flooded grass along the bank. Neither the six adults nor the six downy goslings paid attention to the welders setting a cofferdam in the creek bed. Nate Benefield shoved his mask above his face and reached for more metal. He didn’t give the geese a second look.
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The welder from Alabama is one of Archer-Western’s workers building new ramps connecting I-85 and GA 400 at a job site at Cheshire Bridge Road and Lenox Road. Benefield placed his boots carefully on heavy timbers laid over a bridge of temporary rock baskets. Creek water underneath ran clear around the rocks. Muddy water inside the cofferdam will be pumped out to hold footings for a giant column in the creek bed itself. The column is one of several holding the highway ramp some seventy feet in the air.
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In exchange for the inconvenience of a sky-high ramp, neighbors asked DOT for a hiking trail along the creek, from Cheshire Bridge at Lenox downstream to Lindbergh Drive. The South Fork Conservancy and the Lindridge Martin Manor Neighborhood Association pushed for design of a soft-surfaced trail.
Within a few months, as the ramp is finished, the trail itself will begin to take shape, edging the creek about where the geese found their breakfasts. Today the bank is covered with honeysuckle. By Christmas, when the half-mile trail is scheduled to open, the geese will compete with herons and otters for winter forage.
Crane operator Bubba Gene Willoughby from Carrollton likes the idea of a highway bridge with a trail underneath. “It’s gonna be nice,” he said as he watched the welding. “Work is going along nice and smooth.” He pointed to a pile of timbers on the far bank downstream. “We lost a section of our timber mats in the last rain. The creek just came right up over the (temporary) bridge and floated them away. We’ll get them back when we’re done.”
A crane operator for 37 years, Willoughby loves the work, especially when the weather is nice. The storms did have him worried, though, because the geese went missing. “Didn’t see them for a few days. Glad to have them back.”
Sally Sears
May 22, 2013