For years, the portion of Boone Creek known locally as Kraut Creek has been an all-but-forgotten part of downtown Boone. Running through culverts and pipes and under buildings and parking lots between Howard Street and River Street, the creek collects trash in the brush lining its banks and erodes the properties abutting the creek until it reaches Durham Park on the ASU campus. That may change: envision a meandering walkway between restaurants and apartments with decks overlooking the creek and a healthy riparian ecosystem with flourishing native species.

Visions like these — that combine stream restoration with urban land uses and public space — motivated the collaboration of two classes in the Department of Geography and Planning last spring with “real world” results. Dr. Jana Carp's Project Management class and Dr. Gabrielle Katz's Geographical Hydrology class studied the creek from their respective disciplinary standpoints to discover and recommend improvements for the creek's community character and physical health. Their joint efforts are compiled in an illustrated student report, “Boone Creek: Today and Tomorrow,” that can be viewed on-line at http://www.mountainkeepers.org.

The story doesn't end there: during the course of the semester, the students were impressed by the public support they found while talking to creekside property owners and local citizens about their ideas. This evidence of public support, combined with the involvement in the project management course of many local professionals and officials who provided information for students and reviewed their work, led directly to the formation of the Kraut Creek Committee whose mission is to “facilitate communication and collaboration concerning the well-being of Boone (Kraut) Creek among local government, ASU, residents, and natural sciences and civic organizations.” The committee members include representatives of ASU's Department of Design and Construction, the Town of Boone, the Boone Area Chamber of Commerce, the NC Cooperative Extension, Downtown Boone Development Association, National Committee for the New River, MountainKeepers, ASU faculty and the ASU Sustainable Development Outreach Program. The committee has an official representative of the Boone Town Council, and enjoys research support from an Appalachian Studies graduate student intern, sponsored by MountainKeepers.

With formally adopted goals supporting community character, business and economic development, local history, public safety, water quality, stormwater management, and streambank health, the Kraut Creek Committee has ambitious and important work ahead. The Project Management and Geographical Hydrology students are, as they should be, proud and excited to have set an agenda that has been so enthusiastically and widely embraced by the community.

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