Report - April 24th. Chatham ATT Workday

[Steve Lund]

Chatham ATT Volunteers,

THANK YOU

Thank you for helping to construct a piece of the future American Tobacco 
Trail in Chatham County.You are all to be commended for your efforts. The 
honor roll of folks that gave up part or all of their Saturday reads as 
follows:

Dave Gehrman
Frank Bennett
John Cronin

Please forgive me if forgot anyone. I was working from the sign-up 
sheets.If you were present but not on the above list please email Bill 
Bussey (billbus at gte.net) so that he can record your volunteer hours for 
grant matching purposes. Every hour counts!


SECTION REPORT

O'Kelly Church Rd. north to Northeast Creek.:

Report submitted by Frank Bennett:

Dave and John worked 4 hours moving slash and brush to a pile at a new 
location down in a gully at rosemont crossing - I managed to make one large 
load with Bill's truck (stuff was dragging the ground but i drove slow and 
nothing seemed to fall off) and after unloading on top of the same brush 
pile, took the truck back to the golf course...then I started back up the 
trail toward o'kelly and noticed some pulpwood and slash at a spot that was 
on a fill - so i pitched a bunch of that down the embankment...then further 
toward o'kelly I noticed two spots that had pulpwood in the ditch on the 
west side - i stacked most of that so it will continue to dry out and 
tipped the rest up the embankment so it will not be in the ditch if it does 
rain...I worked a total of 6 hours...

North of O'Kelly is looking good - about 5 or 6 brush piles remain and 
about one day of chain sawing left to do...south of O'Kelly: probably 10-12 
brush piles left and two days of sawing/tossing...


CHANGE OF SEASON

This was the last of the "heavy lifting" workdays that we had scheduled. It 
is now time to take the opportunity to go out and use what you helped to 
create. While you're at it this would be a good time to take a few friends 
along and introduce them to the trail. We need to continue to build our 
advocacy base for the trail if we are ever going to get the bridges 
replaced. The best way to do this is to get more folks to use the trail.

I would like to again thank everyone who has participated in building this 
section of the trail. You can all walk with pride down a now open trail and 
see your accomplishments. For those of you that have yet to contribute 
there will still be opportunities for you to contribute in the future. You 
see, on the east coast trail work is almost never ending. Trails that 
aren't maintained will overgrow in a few short years

FUTURE PLANS

As I write this gates are in the process of being installed at New Hope 
Church Rd, Pittard Sears Rd., and O'Kelly Church Road trail heads. These 
will serve as permanent barriers to vehicles to prevent any future trash 
dumping. These gates will also allow us to remove the tank traps on either 
end of the "war zone" so that we can haul and dump the earlier fruits of 
our labor.

The Friends of the ATT are now going into summer maintenance mode. Our 
objective is to keep the weeds and brush knocked down on the Durham and 
Chatham County sections of the trail. Our weapons will be lawn tractors, 
brush mowers, and weed-eaters. If any of you would like to help out I am 
sure that Frank would be more than glad to show you how to use a DR Brush 
Mower. Cotten would also appreciate some help mowing the Durham County 
section of the trail. Weed eaters are always welcome to groom the trail 
head areas but you'll have to supply your own.

We will continue to use this list to make these infrequent announcements. I 
hope that you will enjoy the trail this summer.


Happy Trails,

Steve Lund
slund-att at pobox.com
Triangle Rails to Trails Conservancy
(919) 481-1300