week of 4/10/02
 
 
 
  Plan will protect endangered species
By Don Hendershot
The Little Tennessee basinwide management plan will be the first to include language that mandates the state to provide for maintenance and recovery of water quality conditions required to sustain federally listed endangered and/or threatened species.

That could, some believe, eventually lead to a prohibition of point-source discharges below the Emory Dam near Franklin.

The Little Tennessee River Basinwide Plan goes to North Carolina’s Environmental Management Commission for review April 11. Division of Water Quality planner for the Little Tennessee basin, Callie Dobson said the EMC could approve the plan, reject it or send it back for some tweaking.

The Little Tennessee is home to the federally endangered Appalachian elktoe and littlewing pearly mussel as well as the federally threatened spotfin chub.

The timing of the basinwide plan made the rule that applies to protecting endangered species problematic. The state language says “these plans shall be developed within the basinwide planning schedule with all plans completed at the end of each watershed’s first complete five-year cycle following adoption of this rule.”

Since the rule became effective in August 2000, two years into the current five-year planning cycle for the Little Tennessee, management strategies were not required to be completed until spring of 2007.

However, Dobson said the new rule allows DWQ to take other actions to protect endangered and threatened species in the Little Tennessee and other rivers across the state.

The Southern Environmental Law Center and concerned citizens had requested that DWQ take some kind of action during this planning cycle to protect the threatened and endangered species in the Little Tennessee, especially between the Lake Emory Dam and Fontana Lake. Actions proposed included prohibiting point source discharge below Lake Emory Dam and imposing restrictions in high-density developments to mitigate storm water runoff.

According to Chapter 2, page 26, of the Little Tennessee Basinwide Overview, “... because implementing development restrictions at the state level requires rule making (typically a 2-3 year period) and because a process involving other agencies and public input has not yet been developed for implementing the Rule for protecting federally threatened and endangered species, DWQ does not recommend that rule-making to establish stormwater control and density provisions for the Little Tennessee below Lake Emory be initiated at this time.”

Dobson said DWQ does not have the expertise or resources to develop a management strategy that would adequately protect endangered and threatened species. According to Dobson, what DWQ would like to do, provided the EMC approves the Little Tennessee basinwide plan, is initiate a collaborative process with agencies such as U.S. Fish and Wildlife, N.C. Wildlife Resources, and other natural resource agencies to establish a management strategy to effectively implement the rule in all applicable river basins across the state.

The basinwide overview states, “Once this process is developed for subject waters, rule-making would be initiated, without waiting for the end of the next five-year cycle. Therefore, management strategies for waters within the Little Tennessee River basin could be implemented well before 2007.”

Dobson said DWQ is prepared to begin this collaboration as soon as EMC signs off on the basinwide plan.