Before America was "discovered," Gills Creek sustained Native American settlements by offering fresh water, fish, and a wildlife corridor for hunting deer and other animals. A major Native American path crossed the area, connecting the Congaree and Wateree Rivers. The Congaree and Wateree tribes settled and hunted along Gills Creek and its tributaries until European settlers came. The creek was then named for James Gill, who settled on the creek in the 1740s. Nearby Jackson Creek was named for early landowners Richard and Philip Jackson.
From 1962 until 2001, areas all along Gills Creek became heavily developed as Columbia's residential population expanded and old farmland was converted into suburban housing. Commercial and industrial entities also expanded in the area. Gills Creek became threatened by development and pollution during those years.
In November 1999, The Gills Creek Watershed Association (GCWA) was registered as a non-profit organization to address water quality issues and sedimentation in Lake Katherine. That group dissolved but was eventually reenergized.
The reenergized GCWA held a meeting in the Richland County Council Chambers Thursday, December 6, 2007, to introduce the association to the citizens of Richland County and enlist their help in protecting the Gills Creek Watershed.
Using some advanced mathematics, current members of the GCWA have established that considering these "ebbs and flows" the GCWA will turn 25 in the early spring of 2025. On March 27, the GCWA's annual Wine for Water event at City Roots will include a 25th Anniversary Celebration.
Wine for Water is GCWA's primary annual fundraising event. It will have plenty of food, carefully curated wines, local beer, live music by beloved S.C. artist Danielle Howle, and a silent auction. Come as you are and expect to have a good time for a good cause. All proceeds will benefit the GCWA and support the work to restore and protect Gills Creek.
"Our Watershed Champions program is really taking off", says Executive Director Bailey Slice Parker. "I'm looking at this program in a different way and utilizing it to help individuals become watershed restorers."
Looking at water restoration in a similar way as Doug Tallamy suggests with Homegrown National Parks, the idea is to give individual citizens the ability and the confidence to improve the water quality in their own immediate world, which contributes to the overall water quality of nearby streams and watersheds every time it rains.
"As an organization featuring contacts with municipalities and the ability to apply for grants, we can do large restoration projects," says Parker, "but individuals might consider stream restoration to be too big for them to attempt. But actually it's not."
Tallamy's Homegrown National Parks (homegrownnationalpark.org) focuses on individuals working to improve their own natural space by returning their lawns into natural spaces to recapture part of the 95 percent of American land now being used for something unnatural.
By encouraging people to become Watershed Champions, this brings water restoration down to a basic level. "Gills Creek isn't the problem -- it's a symptom. It's the result of runoff from all the area land and the quality of what runoff picks up on the way to Gills Creek."
A recent series of stories in The Columbia Star about a small creek at Cutler School on Trenholm Road, still without an ending, pinpoints both the problem and the concept of fixing that problem. This tiny tributary runs into Forest Lake and is adjacent to the school. Fifth Grade students have been using the creek and surrounding area for studying nature.
As part of the studies, the group decided to test the water and found E coli bacteria. Student activity has been shut down for over a year and has negatively affected two different classes. Something is causing dangerously high levels of bacteria in the creek. If the source is located the problem is solved, as long as no other source is there to replace this one.
If every homeowner and resident of a home in the Gills Creek Watershed becomes a Watershed Champion and takes care of their property only, the work being done to the actual creek will be quicker, more efficient, and permanent.
During the flood of 2015, Gills Creek, like every other water source in the Columbia are, overflowed its banks. House numbers 4200-4300 along Timberlane Drive were damaged by the overflow and that section of the street has been declared unsuitable for residential ownership.
GCWA is attempting to purchase some of the property along that stretch for the purpose of keeping it uninhabited and letting it return to a natural state. There have been some deed issues so far, so nothing is resolved, but anyone, including this writer who has been along that street, is excited about this idea and the group involved.
Nature doesn't need much help to return to a natural state. The recent dam removal project at the Klamath River in Oregon/California is a testament to that. One month after the last dam was removed, salmon were ranging along that river once again.
There's work to be done on Timberlane -- old homes need to be removed, concrete must be taken away, and nonnative plants need to be harvested. And most importantly, a deal needs to be agreed on and completed. But another pure, natural space left to the animal kingdom is sorely needed.
Speaking of Timberlane Drive, the recent election saw the approval of the extension of the Penny Tax Program. The Gills Creek Greenway was part of the first segment of that grand plan but hasn't been started yet.
With Part Two approved the Greenway is now more likely to be started and completed but maybe extended. While nothing is planned at this point, the idea of extending the Greenway to Timberlane is being discussed.
The GCWA is also discussing overgrown yard regulations with the City of Columbia. The proposal, now through two readings, would allow Watershed Champions and Native Plant Society signs in yards to offset any complaints about unkept yard issues, offering some relief for the people working to improve the natural state of their yards.
Among things being discussed as possibilities is the idea of having tours of Watershed Champion properties for others to see, as well as more focus on rain garden seminars, touring those locations, and continuing to add volunteers for creek cleanup events.
Anyone reading this should remember that if you live in a place with a yard, you are affecting water quality regardless of what you do -- even if you do nothing. We all need to remember how important water is and how almost everything we do affects the water we drink.