YOUTH
WELLNESS
WELLNESS
Thrills, food and fun for all ages can be found through Nov. 6 at the Fall Fair in the Mall at Stonecrest parking lot. 10
Farm-grown produce, camping gear, worms and even a live hen were at Panola Mountain State Park’s “Local Food, Local Fun Day.” 11
With cold and flu season around the corner, health officials say eating unprocessed, natural foods can help strengthen the immune system. 13
Family fun at Stonecrest
All about the outdoors
Natural defenses
EAST ATLANTA • DECATUR • STONE MOUNTAIN • LITHONIA • AVONDALE ESTATES • CLARKSTON • ELLENWOOD • PINE LAKE • REDAN • SCOTTDALE • TUCKER
Copyright © 2011 CrossRoadsNews, Inc.
October 29, 2011
Volume 17, Number 26
www.crossroadsnews.com
Chuck Burris Memorial Bridge dedicated By Jennifer Ffrench Parker
Charles “Chuck” Burris claimed his place in history in 1997 when he became the first African-American mayor of Stone Mountain, the former headquarters of the white supremacy group the Ku Klux Klan. On Oct. 22, family and former colleagues, friends and constituents unveiled a sign naming a Stone Mountain bridge the Charles “Chuck” Burris Memorial Bridge. Burris’ widow, Marcia Baird Burris, who now lives in Washington D.C., and his son Khalil Abdur-Rashid, who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., also were presented with replicas of the sign. Also in atten-
dance were Burris’ in-laws, Dr. Keith and Mary Baird. The Charles “Chuck” Burris Memorial Bridge is on East Ponce de Leon Avenue, near Memorial Drive. It runs over U.S. 78. Burris, who was mayor until 2001, died at age 57 on Feb, 12, 2009, after years of battling amyloidosis. During the ceremony, he was remembered as a great public servant, a visionary, a bridge builder and a man of integrity who always tried to help people. Fourth District U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson said Burris put Stone Mountain on the map for the right reasons. “He turned the tide of an inglori-
A sign naming a Stone Mountain bridge the Charles “Chuck” Burris Memorial Bridge was unveiled Oct. 22. It honors Stone Mountain’s first black mayor.
ous past to one of a glorious future,” Johnson said. He called the naming of the bridge for Burris “a great gesture.” “This is a monument to the future so that our children can find out who Chuck Burris was,” he said. Sen. Steve Henson said that Burris fought for the people. “Every day that I go under the bridge or over the bridge, I will reflect and be proud to know Chuck Burris,” he said. DeKalb CEO Burrell Ellis recalled swelling with great pride when he saw Burris sitting next to first lady Hillary Please see BRIDGE, Page 2
Curtis Parker / CrossRoadsNews
Plethora of tires spurs kayaker to action Austell man pulls scores of tires out of South River By Jennifer Ffrench Parker
Richard Grove loves rivers and he can see the potential of the neglected South River. Six years ago, he paddled 58.5 miles on it to the Gulf of Mexico to admire its beauty, spotlight its problems and encourage the communities on its banks to clean it up. But after the publicity died down, not much happened. Last week he was back – this time, not to paddle in a kayak, but to wade into the river to drag some of the thousands of submerged tires from its polluted waters. Grove set out on Oct. 20 to pull 50 tires from a small section of the river near the Sugar Creek Golf Course. Fifty was just a number he thought he could do in a day. But there were so many tires, he just kept going. He returned on Oct. 22 and dragged another 50 tires from the river’s murky waters for a nice round number of 100. Grove said the existence of that many tires in the river is not an accident. “There are thousands of them here,” he said Saturday morning before stepping in for a second day of work. “Someone dumped them here.” Jacqueline Echols, president of the South River Watershed Alliance, said tire dumping is a big problem for the South River. “It’s pollution,” she said. “It’s trash, except it’s bigger and it doesn’t degrade, and it’s difficult to remove.” Most of all, Echols said dumped tires spoil the aesthetics of the river. “It just kills the picture of the river that people see,” she said. It’s been easy to dump in the South River, Echols says, because it is neglected and it
Curtis Parker / CrossRoadsNews
Richard Grove / Special
Curtis Parker / CrossRoadsNews
the system that contributes to the dumping of tires. “Folks are paid at the front end to haul tires away from tire stores and body shops but must pay recyclers to take them,” she said. “The incentive to Richard Grove deliver them to a recycler is gone and they find a spot to dump them. A lot of the lacks the visibility of, say, a Chattahoochee isolated spots are around rivers and parks.” River that is a recreational amenity. “It just hasn’t had the kind of attention State’s most polluted river that the Chattahoochee gets,” she said. “That’s Grove knows that there are thousands of why we are bringing visibility to it.” tires in the South River because he saw them She said that the dumping of tires in the on his journey down the river in September South River is part of a larger issue of public 2005. policy. Echols said disincentives are built into But getting them is hard, slow work, and “I can’t do anything about its biological state. I am not a biologist or chemist, but I can do something about its physical condition. I am one man with a strong back. I look at the cans and tires and I say, ‘That’s an easy fix.’”
Richard Grove, who paddled on the South River on his way to the Gulf of Mexico in 2005, has removed 100 tires from the murky waters.
even when he got them to the banks of the river, there is the issue of getting them to a recycler. On Saturday, he worked alone in the chilly waters. The submerged tires were easy to spot. After getting a good grasp, Grove had to wrestle silt- and sand-filled tires to the surface of the water, shake and wash out the mud and goo, and walk them to the growing stacks he was building on a shoal of the river. “A regular car tire full of wet sand I can barely pick up,” he said. Grove, who lives in Austell, said he came to south DeKalb County to help the river, known as Georgia’s most polluted river bePlease see SOUTH RIVER, Page 2