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Little Tennessee Watershed Association

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The Little Tennessee Watershed Association (LTWA) is a conservation organization formed in 1993 in Franklin, NC to protect and restore the health and waters of the Little Tennessee River and its tributaries upstream of the Fontana reservoir through monitoring, education, habitat restoration, and citizen action.[1] With around 140 members,[2] the organization advocates for the conservation of the watershed in Macon County and its surrounding counties, helps protect and restore at-risk properties in the watershed, and maintains a biomonitoring program that charts the quality of aquatic life and biodiversity of the river.[1]

History

In 1993, citizens, local government officials, and scientists attending a local watershed conference in Franklin recognized that accelerating growth and development were impacting the health of the Little Tennessee River watershed, and decided that they needed a strategy to protect water quality, aquatic life, and biodiversity in the watershed. The 200-plus people who participated decided that an organization was needed to lead the effort, and the LTWA was born.[3]

From 1994 onward, the LTWA operated as an all-volunteer organization under the Southwestern North Carolina Resource Conservation and Development Council, part of the US Department of Agriculture's Natural Resource Conservation Service. In 1998, the LTWA hired its first paid staff member.[3] It earned 501c(3) nonprofit status in 2001.[4]

Activity in the watershed

The LTWA focuses broadly on biomonitoring, education, restoration, and advocacy.

Biomonitoring

The LTWA's biomonitoring program is headed by Dr. William McLarney, who began monitoring the Little Tennessee watershed in 1990, before the LTWA was founded.[3] The data from this program provides a picture of the biodiversity of the watershed over the past 20 years,[1] and is the largest fish-based biomonitoring database in the world for any comparably sized watershed.[3] Throughout the program's history, over 2,000 volunteers have participated in field work and data collection at over 150 sites around the watershed, and data from the program appears in the Southern Appalachain Information Node database, making it accessible all over the world.[3]

Education

The LTWA has provided informal courses as part of volunteer biomonitoring activities for individuals and groups from many organizations including Franklin High School, Macon Middle School, Upward Bound, Outward Bound, NCCAT, The Mountain Retreat Center, SAFC, interns at the Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory, and many others.[3] Played a major role in creating a Biomonitoring Curriculum for Macon County schools in partnership with Coweeta Hydrologic Lab, and has worked with the Tennessee Valley Authority's "Kids in the Creek" program.[3] It has also published several guides and publications about the watershed, including A Field Guide to the Fishes of the Upper Little Tennessee Watershed, a 71-page illustrated booklet about 68 species of fish in the watershed, Sediment in our Watershed, a 4-page brochure funded by the Little Tennessee Nonpoint Source with information about the problems of sediment, and The State of the Streams in the Upper Little Tennessee Watershed: A Report on Water Quality and Habitat Trends, 1990-2002 , which uses data from the biomonitoring program to illustrate the overall health of the watershed.[5]

Restoration

In the past decade, the LTWA has partnered with the Macon Soil and Water Conservation District and local landowners to perform voluntary restoration projects on more than 3.4 miles of eroded stream bank, plant more than 10.3 miles of vegetative buffer, and install 4.6 miles of livestock fence along local waterways.[3]

Tessentee Farm

The organization also collaborates with the Land Trust for the Little Tennessee (also based in Franklin) to purchase, protect and restore at-risk tracts of land in the watershed. In 2008, the LTWA coordinated a volunteer effort to restore part of a 64-acre tract of bottomland and river bluff land at the junction of Tessentee Creek and the Little Tennessee River owned by the LTLT known as the Tessentee Farm back to its condition prior to the addition of a man-made pond and other landscaping.[6]

The Watauga Restoration Project

In 2006, the LTWA was awarded a grant to study the spotfin chub, designated as a threatened species by the US Fish and Wildlife Service.[7]. Staff aquatic biologist and biomonitoring program leader William McLarney identified several potential barriers to fish passage between the Lake Emory Dam in Franklin to the Fontana reservoir in Swain County that appeared to be contributing to the decline of the spotfin chub in the watershed. This research led to a multi agency effort by the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources, the North Carolina Division of Water Quality, USFWS, the North Carolina Department of Transportation, NRCS, the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, and North Carolina State University to assess barriers to aquatic organism passage through the Little Tennessee and its tributaries. By 2007, several potential locations for restoration efforts (mostly located on private property) had been identified. The LTWA requested funds to pursue a restoration project along Watauga Creek in Macon County, and received a federal stimulus grant through the USFWS's Partners for Fish & Wildlife Program funds program (part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009). It then collaborated with local contractors on dam and culvert removal, temporary flow diversion around the dam during construction and some streambank stabilization, and built new free-spanning bridges that wouldn't block fish passage.[8] The project is still ongoing, with the LTWA organizing volunteer groups to plant trees, sow grass seed, and lay down straw mulch.[9]

Advocacy

The LTWA provides a pro-conservation voice in local politics, playing an active role on Macon County's Watershed Council,Cite error: The <ref> tag has too many names (see the help page). After executive director Jenny Sanders informed Macon County commissioners of the comment period for the permit, the commissioners voted unanimously to submit a letter to the Georgia Environmental Protection Division requesting a public hearing on Rabun County's application and highlighting concerns about the permit, including "interbasin transfer implications, the impact on a section of the Little Tennessee already listed as impaired, the town's plans to use the Little Tennessee as a public water supply, concerns raised about the use of chlorine for disinfection."[10]

Organizational structure

The LTWA's board of directors comprises:

  • Dr. Don Dewhurst
  • Vic Greene
  • Ryan Griffith

The LTWA's staff members are:

  • Jenny Sanders, Executive Director
  • Dr. Bill McLarney, Biomonitoring Program Director
  • Jason Meador, Watershed Program Coordinator
  • Sharon Willard, BookkeeperCite error: The <ref> tag has too many names (see the help page). The LTLT is dedicated to preserving the landscape of the upper upper Little Tennessee and Hiwasee River Valleys by promoting conservation easements and purchasing at-risk properties.<ref name="ltwa.org" [10] </ref>

References

  1. ^ a b c [1]
  2. ^ [2]
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Cite error: The named reference Little Tennessee Watershed Association Strategic Plan Executive Summary, 2009-2010 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ [3]
  5. ^ [4]
  6. ^ [5]
  7. ^ [6]
  8. ^ [7]
  9. ^ [8]
  10. ^ [9]
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