Improving Atlanta,
Watershed by Watershed

Large free paved lot with ADA. Gary Avenue Trailhead at Bankhead MARTA Station (Green Line).

The single strongest match for the Poway template in metro Atlanta. A 12-foot-wide paved PATH Foundation greenway threads behind the Hollowell Parkway fast-food strip (Popeyes, Church's, Krystal, Subway), past abandoned industrial parcels, along a creek with a federal EJ designation. Responsibility splits among PATH Foundation, City of Atlanta Parks, DWM, GDOT, private industrial landowners, and MARTA — a textbook orphan-mile. 42% of pollutants reaching the Chattahoochee from Atlanta originate in this watershed.

Fast-food waste from the Hollowell strip, stormwater-funneled bottles and bags, dumped shopping carts, illegally dumped tires (a documented Proctor Creek hallmark), construction debris from Quarry Yards/Microsoft campus redevelopment.

Start Maddox Park lot; sweep trail edges and creek overlooks 0.5–1.5 miles northwest toward Johnson Road bridge. Two teams — trail-edge and bank-overlook (stays on bridges, never in water). 4–6 crew, 3.5–4.5 hours.

High caution on three fronts. Encampments documented — be respectful, never photograph people, never disturb tents. Proctor Creek is among the most sewage-impacted streams in the Southeast — no in-water work, nitrile gloves under work gloves, hand-wash station mandatory, 48-hour post-rain wait. Flash flood history is severe (2002 flood destroyed 60+ homes). Copperhead/cottonmouth, fire ants, poison ivy. Cell service degrades mid-greenway — buddy system non-negotiable.

Watershed serves roughly 60,000 people across 25+ majority-Black neighborhoods with household poverty rates near 60% in English Avenue/Vine City. EPA EJScreen block groups sit above the 90th percentile nationally. Asthma rates run nearly 2x the Georgia average. Downstream impact touches drinking water for five million people along the Chattahoochee.

Dedicated greenway parking behind REI, off I-85 access road. Mid-trail at 1801 Corporate Blvd; east terminus at 2036 N. Druid Hills Rd.

Paved 1.3-mile trail wedged between North Fork Peachtree Creek and the Buford Highway strip-mall spine (Northeast Plaza 466K sf, Plaza Fiesta 355K sf, Buford Highway Farmers Market). Debris arrives from GDOT, private retail, MARTA Route 39 (metro's busiest bus), upstream City of Atlanta stormwater, and DeKalb watershed — yet Brookhaven only maintains the trail surface. The initial cleanup pulled 200+ tires and 30 truckloads.

Stormwater-delivered plastic, pedestrian fast-food waste from Buford Hwy, shopping carts (Chattahoochee Riverkeeper documented 500+ carts in 110 miles), alcohol bottles at bus stops, kudzu-tangled tires, seasonal flood debris.

Start Briarwood trailhead; work creekward east toward Corporate Blvd bridge and N. Druid Hills. For higher-impact work, push west into un-built Phase 2 toward Buford Hwy overpass. 4–6 crew, 3.5–4.5 hours. Both sides out-and-back ~2.6 miles.

Buford Highway is nationally documented as one of the deadliest pedestrian roads (154 crashes on DeKalb segment since 2003) — park only at trailheads. Encampments under I-85 overpass; sharps risk elevated. Flash flooding real — NOAA gauge on this exact trail. Standard snake/fire ant/poison ivy/heat protocols.

The Buford Highway immigrant corridor — Latino, Vietnamese, Chinese, Korean, Ethiopian, Nepali, Bangladeshi, Somali, Burmese communities and 1,000+ immigrant-owned businesses. The immigrant community keeps the region's most dangerous road economically alive; we clean the creek behind their apartments.

Free parking, restrooms, ADA. ~3 min walk to Willingham Drive. Alt: East Point MARTA Station.

Georgia's second-longest river (344 miles) literally emerges from a storm culvert on the south side of Virginia Avenue and disappears under the world's busiest airport. Jurisdictional overlap is maximal: East Point, College Park, Hapeville, Fulton County, GDOT, MARTA, Hartsfield-Jackson, and Woodward Academy. The $64.9M Flint River Gateway Trails federal grant was rescinded in the 2025 budget reconciliation — creating a narrative opening for community-led gap-filling work.

Fast-food waste from the US-29 strip, single-use plastics, tires from the industrial corridor, auto parts and oil bottles, construction debris, MARTA park-and-ride blow-through trash.

Start College Park MARTA; walk east on Main to Willingham; sweep sidewalks east to Elm; circle the future-preserve fenceline (Willingham → Vesta → Elm); continue to I-85 overpass and return. 3–5 crew, 3.5 hours. ~1.2–1.5 miles, all paved and flat.

Airport noise is intense — hearing protection helpful. Airport-edge pollution (PM2.5, ultrafines) warrants N95 masks. Willingham is active commercial — hi-vis vests mandatory. No work on I-85 ramps. Fire ants in meadow areas.

Census tracts score 85th–95th percentile on EPA EJScreen for air toxics, diesel PM, and traffic proximity. Historic Black neighborhoods were displaced by airport expansion (Mountain View erased in 1978). The narrative — "the busiest airport in the world is built on top of Georgia's second-longest river" — travels extraordinarily well for media and grants.

Free paved lot (~15 spaces, ADA) at the end of S. River Industrial Blvd, off Moreland Ave (US-23).

Western terminus of the PATH Foundation South River Trail (Michelle Obama Trail system) where the City of Atlanta limit ends and DeKalb County begins. Within a mile of the Moreland/Constitution Road retail strip. The South River corridor holds five closed landfills and demolished public housing sites. South River Watershed Alliance filed a Title VI Civil Rights complaint with EPA citing environmental racism along this corridor.

Flood-deposited bottles, cans, fast-food wrappers, plastic bags along boardwalk edges; styrofoam cups, drink pouches, tire scraps on the floodplain; tires and mattresses on adjacent industrial parcels. Do NOT remove objects from the Doll's Head Trail art installation — cleanup zone is the gravel road, boardwalk perimeter, and floodplain outside the art loop.

Start trailhead lot. Sweep (a) gravel access road from Moreland, (b) boardwalk perimeter ~0.4 mi, (c) South River bank between boardwalk and railroad bridge ~0.3 mi. 4–6 crew, 3.5–4 hours. ~1.5–2 miles total.

Sewage contamination is high — DeKalb's CWA consent decree names Intrenchment Creek as the last tributary still receiving CSO. No wading; nitrile gloves under work gloves; hand sanitizer mandatory. Copperheads confirmed by park sources. Poison ivy and deer ticks significant. Brief crews explicitly: do NOT remove Doll's Head art objects.

Block groups rank 80th–95th percentile on EJScreen for wastewater discharge, hazardous-waste proximity, and demographic index. Historic Black neighborhoods (Thomasville Heights, Lakewood Heights) abut the site.

Free parking behind Target or Lowe's (NW corner, closest to wooded buffer and creek). Haul bags to Merk Miles Convenience Center, 3225 Merk Rd, College Park (<10 min).

The most literal "behind-the-mall" site — Target, Old Navy, Lowe's, Five Below, plus a ring of QSR pad sites (Chick-fil-A, McDonald's, Wingstop), with Camp Creek running directly behind toward the Chattahoochee. Five jurisdictions intersect: East Point, South Fulton (incorporated 2017), GDOT, Fulton County, and the private mall owner.

Dense fast-food debris from the QSR ring, plastic bags from Target and Lowe's, shopping-cart debris, foam cups, cigarette butts at bus stops. Illegally dumped tires, mattresses, and construction debris documented repeatedly by WSB, Fox 5, and 11Alive on adjacent corridors.

Start NW corner behind Lowe's. Sweep (a) wooded/grassy buffer between lot and Camp Creek Pkwy ~0.4 mi, (b) Camp Creek Pkwy sidewalk east to creek crossing, (c) drainage inlets and bus stops on Marketplace Blvd. 4–6 crew, 3–4 hours. ~1.5 miles. Easy difficulty.

Camp Creek Pkwy is 6-lane, 45–50 mph — hi-vis mandatory, no median work. Fire ants dense on grass strips; poison ivy in wooded buffer. Heat amplified by parking-lot radiant gain — start 7–8 AM warm months. Low encampment risk. Coordinate with property management before staging in their lot.

East Point and South Fulton tracts score 85th–95th percentile on EJScreen for demographic index, traffic proximity, and Superfund proximity. Surrounding neighborhoods are ~90% Black with long-documented disinvestment. Ideal for corporate-volunteer events or recurring quarterly sweeps.