<< Back 5/21/03 Dam serves valuable role in Jackson County By T.J. Walker For those of us who live on and around the Tuckasegee River and are in the tourism business in Jackson County, the current path and evolving plans to remove the Dillsboro Dam present many serious and unanswered questions. One of the major unstudied issues was demonstrated last week with the help of Mother Nature. The question of flood control and protection is no small thing to the Dillsboro community. This recent flood event warrants a good look on how the Dillsboro Dam admirably performed during high water. Duke Power and many in the stakeholders team do not know and would like us to believe there is no significant flood control value. Too bad they didn’t visit the Dillsboro Dam this past week. But let’s back up a bit and touch upon the subjects of tourism and the environment and one of the roles that the dam has played to help our economy. During the first three to five months of the year most of the tourism-based business (and tax dollars we generate) have to operate and survive in this county without any significant commerce at all. At the Dillsboro Inn, even though we advertise “open year round,” the months of January, February and March bring very little business as historically not a lot of tourists arc attracted to our area in the winter. But there has been a change occurring in our economy in recent years and opportunity and business is shifting. April is fast becoming the start of our tourism season because of the increased popularity of trout fishing. We have a unique and beautiful river and watershed in Jackson County, and it’s slowly becoming one of the best destination points in America for trout fishing. How many more fishermen are we seeing on the Tuckasegee? No doubt our river is quickly earning a greater national reputation as a world-class trout fishing river, even though thousands of trout die each year because of poorly managed water flow regimes. To this end, the role that the Dillsboro Dam plays in augmenting trout fishing habitat (creating a re-regulation weir and reservoir) is one of the major questions that Duke Power and the stakeholders team need to consider in drawing up their consensus recommendations and mitigation plans. Trout fishing has an eight- to-nine month ecotourism business season. Whitewater rafting, with its economic impact and use of the river, has a three- to four-month season, attracting folks from Memorial Day to Labor Day. So trout fishing, with its broad national appeal and growth and a well-heeled customer demographic, has a longer season. And this upward trend has occurred despite the inadequate water releases and flow regimes associated with power generation, killing tens of thousands of trout during summer months during the no-flow or slow-flow periods). So we haven’t reached our potential as a trout fishery. Imagine what our tourism markets would be like if we kept those thousands of trout alive each year and continued to stock more in the fall. Trout being a cold water fish, it can’t survive in water above 58 degrees. The Dillsboro Dam and mile-long reservoir has given some of them a chance to survive in the summer with water temperatures and flows as they have been, and a place to winter as they seek lakes and pools during cold months. The dam also acts as a barrier between cold water and warm water species. Do we really want to degrade the potential for having world-class trout waters by opening the dam and upper portion of catch-and-release areas to warm water species of fish. Can we attract commerce here for darters? The TVA, in the last decade, has built small dams on tailrace rivers like ours to benefit cold water trout fisheries and the associated economies of small communities like ours. Fishermen I talk to want an alternative to bass fishing and love the Tuck. So what happens with these promising figures and this potential growth in the tourism market if the dam is removed? Many fishing experts and guides in the area will tell you much of the growth towards a world-class trout fishery will be lost. Is this path we are currently on a formula for economic short sightedness and disaster? Is there a huge economic market and windfall for Jackson County waiting to happen just with better management practices of the river? These are some of the questions residents, businesses and leaders of Jackson County should be asking before the strategy of delayed destruction of the Dillsboro Dam and management practices on the Tuckasegee River go any farther. Now then, let us recount what took place this past week and how the Dillsboro Dam admirably served our community. We just experienced what many are calling a 20-year rain and flood event. The area’s many lakes, reservoirs and rivers swelled to significantly high water levels. The Glenville and Wolf Lake dams were opened to their fullest capacity to release many days of rain. For a few crucial days the Tuckasegee rose right up to flooding stages along different points on the river. That’s when I wish the leaders of our community, experts, stakeholders and Duke Power engineers could have observed, studied and explained how well the Dillsboro Reservoir and Dam handled this flood. Observing from my vantage point next to the dam, I can only say it performed beautifully, it’s as if it was designed to manage and withstand such an event in the first place. First of all, the mile-long reservoir rose about eight feet and absorbed huge amounts of swelling water at a point where there is not such a great elevation decline, serving as a basin catch point for flood waters. Then our little bulwarks sends this high volume of water through, down and past the dam at a greater rate of speed and velocity than normal, and beyond the Dillsboro community floodplain area (inns, businesses, homes and parks) to a portion of our river valley that has a greater decline and can better handle amounts of water. So the reservoir and dam act as a pump station during floods, just as if it was designed to do so. Was it put in place to serve in this capacity? How will Dillsboro fare in the first flood event once its gone? What will happen to the newly constructed jetty or weir or class 3 whitewater rapid when the river rises eight to 10 feet again and sends an ocean of water, sediment, logs and debris at high rates of speed down, through and over it. Will that structure be strong enough to last and not be scattered down the river during an event like this and what will that look like? It’s a shame this little facility has been neglected so, allowed to deteriorate, never dredged (it could serve as a sediment trap addressing the biggest problem along the river) and underappreciated as a power plant. (T .J Walker is the owner/operator of the Dillsboro Inn)