The Nashville District Corps of Engineers is partnering with Macon County to study the existing sedimentation in Lake Emory and the continued inflow of sediment from the upper basin.

“When the study is completed it will recommend measures and programs to be put into effect and attach a dollar value,” said Macon County Manager Sam Greenwood. The plan will then comeback before the county Watershed Council and the commissioners for funding consideration.

Greenwood described the thrust of the project as, “a long-term program designed to keep Lake Emory viable as a sediment trap by increasing its absorption capacity and, at the same time, working on the sedimentation problem in the upper watershed.”

The project has a price tag of just over $600,000, according to Linda Adcock, the Corps project manager.

The project is funded on a 50 to 50 cost share basis between the Corps and Macon County. Adcock said that the Corps’ share of the cost came from a 1974 special authorization to study the Tennessee and Cumberland river watersheds.

Greenwood said that the county met its commitment through in-kind services and funds from the Clean Water Management Trust Fund. The Lake Emory Project, started in conjunction with Duke Power-Nantahala Area (formerly Nantahala Power and Light), was the genesis for the study, he said.

The Lake Emory Project, designed to study the Federal Energy Resources Commission’s limits for sedimentation in the lake, would have stopped at the Wells Grove Bridge in Franklin, Greenwood said.
“After consulting with the Corps, the Little Tennessee Watershed Association (LTWA) and the Watershed Council, the decision was made to expand the study to the entire watershed,” Greenwood said.

LTWA Director Jamie Johnston said that his organization was responsible for “monitoring one aspect of the project. We’re collecting data on bedload sediment from four sites: Lake Emory, the Little Tennessee above Lake Emory, the Cullasaja and Cartoogechaye. We then submit the data to the United States Geological Survey (USGS) to be analyzed and they send the information to the Corps of Engineers.”

According to the Corps’ feasibility study, “the principal ecological problem in the watershed is sedimentation, both historical and recent. Historical sedimentation has clogged the channel of the upper Little Tennessee River and collected in Lake Emory, significantly degrading species diversity. Lake Emory, however, has served a protective function for important natural resources down stream of Porter’s Bend Dam; particularly several federally listed species of freshwater mussel. More recently, sedimentation has increased due to urbanization of the upper portion of the watershed and riparian agricultural practices such as stock watering and specialty vegetable cropping. Such practices contribute sediment to the river bedload and hasten the infilling of Lake Emory.”

The data gathering should be finished by this summer and concept plans will take shape in the fall of 2001, Adcock said. An Environmental Assessment will be prepared in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act and comments will be solicited from all interested parties, she said.

“This will provide rationale for selection of a limited number of watershed project sites and serve as a guide for future watershed restoration activities that may be addressed by the Corps or other local entities,” the Corps’ feasibility study states.

 

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The Smoky Mountain News