It looks barren now, but city says cutting trees will help clear Mud Creek
CBC News | Posted: April 30, 2020 8:00 AM | Last Updated: April 30, 2020
Tree removal is part of plan to restore the creek south of Oxford Street
Up close, it's easy to see how London's Mud Creek got its name.
Shallow, slow-moving in spots and mostly mucky, the creek is part of a critical drainage system that starts near Cherry Hill Mall on Oxford Street. From there, it flows in a southwesterly direction under Oxford, through a culvert beneath the CN rail line, under Wonderland Road North and on to the Thames River.
Earlier this year, the forested area where the creek runs near Wonderland Road and Riverside Drive was heavily logged. Scores of mature trees were removed, many are now piled on the banks of the creek. City officials say the clearing work is part of a larger plan that will benefit the creek and improve the area's overall environment in the long run.
"The trees are going to make way for a corridor that is going to be much healthier in the future," said Shawna Chambers, the city's division manager of stormwater engineering.
"The tree removal is critical to creating this large, natural corridor," she said. "We need to make the corridor larger and to do that, we have to cut down the trees."
She said Mud Creek in its current state is unhealthy, that its slow flow rate leads to poor water quality. The work that started this spring is part of a $15-million plan to reconstruct the creek, which will be widened and lowered on both sides of the CN rail line.
Its banks will be shored up and new trees will be planted to support wildlife in the area.
The plans also include a pedestrian corridor along the section of the creek that runs north of the tracks. Also, the culvert that carries water beneath the rail line and dates from the 1880s will be replaced with broader diameter pipes to improve drainage and reduce flooding.
"It will be a wildlife corridor and an amenities space for all the residents in the area," said Chambers.
She said many of the trees that were removed in recent weeks are non-native species, that will be replaced with native ones.
"It may look like a nice woodlot on from the outside but from the inside there it wasn't very diverse ecologically," she said.