The Southern Highland Reader

DILLSBORO–The U.S. Court of Appeals upheld on Tuesday the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ruling that the Dillsboro Dam should be removed.

From an Asheville Citizen-Times staff report:

The court today denied Jackson County’s petition for review of FERC’s July 2007 order allowing Duke Energy to remove the historic dam.

Read more here, from Lynn Hotaling at the Sylva Herald.

GSMNP–Congressman Heath Shuler recently helped secure a $13 million down-payment from the federal government to help put an end to the nearly-seven-decade controversy over a road once planned along the north shore of Lake Fontana.

The payment, part of a larger, undisclosed sum, would compensate Swain County for the federal government’s choice not to build the road, which was promised in 1943.

National Parks Traveler writer Danny Bernstein gives a history of the controversy here.

Here’s an excerpt:

The North Shore Road issue was revived again in 2001 when former Congressman Charles Taylor, a Republican from western North Carolina, obtained $16 million for further construction of the North Shore Road. This set off a process that looked into the environmental impact of a 35-mile road. The National Park Service held public input forums in various locations around the Smokies and accepted comments from anyone in the U.S. on various ways to resolve the 1943 agreement. Thousands of pages were generated, reviewed, and discussed. Descendants of the original settlers were the only ones who wanted a road in the park. Almost all comments were against the road and for a financial settlement with Swain County, where Fontana Dam is located, one of the four parties to the original agreement.

In December 2007, the Department of the Interior made a decision that officially called for a yet-to-be-specified multi-million-dollar monetary settlement to Swain County instead of a road through one of the most pristine and untouched areas in the East. Though the park is now protected and the North Shore Road will never be built, Congress still has to approve the funds to settle the 1943 agreement.

MURPHY–An elementary and middle school in the Murphy area could be the first in the region to implement an extensive solar power array if the Cherokee County school board gives the green light.

The 4,300 panel array would cut power costs at St. Martins Elementary and Middle School by 85% over 20 years, with a total cost avoidance of over $1 million, according to school superintendent Stephen Lane.

The system would be paid for by green energy tax credits issued by Blue Ridge Mountain Electric Membership Corp.

Read a story about the project from Lizz Harold at Murphy’s Cherokee Scout here.

MURPHY–Dwight Otwell, staff writer for the Cherokee Scout in Murphy, reported recently about efforts made by mountain farmers to diversify and to profit from niche crops.

Agriculture has dwindled rapidly in the mountains, where farmers face not only the standard competition from industrial farming, but the added challenge of a lack of flat land.

Otwell’s lead:

Farmers who make their entire livelihood from working the land are almost a relic from the past in Cherokee County.

As the number of large farms has steadily dwindled, a new type of farmer has emerged, one who can forge a living from an acre or two growing for a specialty market.

He goes on to interview a vintner, a dairy farmer and vegetable farmers, all of whom are using innovative methods to make their famrs work.

Another excerpt:

A new type of market is using the Internet to sell products to high-end restaurants or consumers. The main market for this area is Atlanta.

The idea is that a chef gets the fresh produce he wants the next day, Wood said. The chef knows the farm the produce comes from and he trusts it. A person with as little as a half acre of land willing to grow specialty crops can make $20,000 to $30,000 an acre.

Read Otwell’s story in the Scout here.

NATIONAL–The New York Times published an extensive feature about drinking water this week, with a focus on outdated regulations and a great deal of extra information.

Here’s the lead from the Times’s Charles Duhigg:

The 35-year-old federal law regulating tap water is so out of date that the water Americans drink can pose what scientists say are serious health risks — and still be legal.

Only 91 contaminants are regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act, yet more than 60,000 chemicals are used within the United States, according to Environmental Protection Agency estimates. Government and independent scientists have scrutinized thousands of those chemicals in recent decades, and identified hundreds associated with a risk of cancer and other diseases at small concentrations in drinking water, according to an analysis of government records by The New York Times.

But not one chemical has been added to the list of those regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act since 2000.

The Times story package includes access to the Environmental Working Group’s national drinking water database, from which readers can easily find test results on water systems across our region. Examine whether contaminants in your water supply met two standards: the legal limits established by the Safe Drinking Water Act, and the typically stricter health guidelines.

Follow the links below to search up your system:

Jackson County

Graham County

Macon County

Clay County

Cherokee County

Swain County

Read the New York Times story here.

REGIONAL–Congress has approved $13 million towards a larger settlement with Swain County to resolve the North Shore Road issue.

Here’s an excerpt from Mark Barrett’s story in the Asheville Citizen-Times:

STATEWIDE–Brian Postelle at the Mountain Xpress has a look at statewide smoking regulations that go into effect in early January, and he focuses on the fact that municipalities will have expanded powers to restrict smoking in outside areas.

It’s an obvious subject in Asheville, where hipsters congregate and smoke in lots of places.

Here’s an excerpt from Postelle’s story:

… unlike enclosed bars and restaurants, where secondhand smoke fills whole rooms, some maintain that outdoor areas do not pose as clear a danger.

“We’re outside. Why wouldn’t we be allowed to smoke?” asks Aerin Moonbourne after lighting up with friends at [Pritchard Park].

[Patrick] Mullen, though, points to mounting evidence of secondhand smoke danger. “I don’t think that it’s any question anymore that it’s a health issue,” he countered. The air in the park, he maintains, is “pretty cloudy most of the time, and there’s cigarette butts all over.”

But Gabriel McKinney, also enjoying a smoke at the park, believes there’s a larger agenda lurking behind the ban. “They do this every year,” he asserts. “It’s just digging up dirt to push the homeless out.”

Read the piece here.

CULLOWHEE–In a letter published in this week’s Smoky Mountain News, Jeannette Evans, owner of Cullowhee’s Mad Batter and principal in the area transportation advocacy group Smart Roads, has a look at where the “southern loop” issue stands.

A clip:

A new bypass has enormous potential to drastically change our community’s traffic patterns, economy and landscape. Conversely, all the other projects located in the CTP are designed to improve and/or expand existing roads, thus improving current traffic patterns and preserving our landscape. DOT’s own modeling showed that the 107 Connector would not solve the congestion on N.C. 107 or at the intersection of Asheville Highway. It is primarily these congestion areas that are cited as reasons for building the 107 Connector.

Read her letter here.

CULLOWHEE–When outfitter Burt Kornegay, owner of Slickrock Expeditions, got an email from a friend inviting him to a save-the-Dillsboro-Dam shindig, he fired off a pithy response. Naturally, it was immediately shared all around the interwebs, where by complete happenstance it filtered all the way down to me.

Here it is, with his permission:

First, the note from his friend:

Yo, read all about it….

Saturday night there is a benefit in support of saving the Dillsboro Dam. So, all you anti-establishment, anti-Duke Power people come on down and catch the 7:30 set of singer-songwriter Barbara Duncan. If you’ve not heard her, you owe it to yourself to check this out and to have a few beers in the process, not to mention to support a good cause. So, let’s make Sat. eve. a party night and fill up Guadalupe (that also serves great food).

Hope to see you there …

Then, Burt’s response:

Hey, Partner, Hold on there!

Why do you say that fighting to keep the Dillsboro dam is “a good cause”?  Because doing so spites bad ole Duke?  Let’s not forget that the dam plugs up and drowns the Tuckaseegee River, halting the travel of river creatures and backing up an unnatural mile-long trough of deadwater behind it. Also, from a human perspective now, the dam stands in the way of creating a real, honest-to-goodness “river park” in Dillsboro.  By honest-to-goodness river park, I mean a park with a river that actually flows, like at East LaPorte (probably the most popular public place in our county).  A real river park would make a pleasurable place for all of us to go, and it would be good for businesses in Dillsboro too.  Hundreds of old concrete plugs like the Dillsboro dam are coming down all across the US,  cheered on by river-loving and civic-minded people just like yourself, and I say, Right On!

As for your rebel claim that it is “anti-establishment” to fight for the dam, because doing so is anti-Duke, I say, wasn’t the dam built by the county’s moneyed “establishment” in the first place, back when other segments of the local “establishment” were as busy as beavers gnawing out railroad lines, felling the virgin forest, and turning the Tuckaseegee into flowing mud?  I mean, what could be more “establishment” than a dam?  (Well, perhaps a skyscraper or aircraft carrier.)  And what could be more “establishment” than to align yourself with the likes of county manager Ken “Dam or Die” Westmoreland, who doesn’t mind taxing us to the tune of more than a quarter-million-$ to pay lawyers, in his attempts to do  .  . . what?  Why, to milk still more $ from Duke! When it comes to the Dillsboro dam, the “anti-” lies in taking it down.

Kornegay’s longtime Jackson County business has been the focus of some media features lately. Here and here from the Smoky Mountain News, for example. The Sylva Herald has also written him up (you can search that story at their paid archives, here).

Recent news from the legal struggle over the dam from the Sylva Herald here (link will expire in one week), and from the Smoky Mountain News here.

REGIONAL–With a steady resurgence of the mountain black bear population in progress (and there was never any great shortage), its no surprise that they’re in the news so often these days. But even so, this week was a humdinger.

Bryson City is used to bears, given its proximity to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and lots of National Forest. Still, when a female and her cub came to town, found a tree they liked, and camped out, it caused a stir.

Clay Wilson at the Smoky Mountain Times got some mileage out of the story. Here’s an excerpt:

“I’ve never seen so many people,” said retired Swain County Schools teacher Shirley Sutton, who with her husband Eugene owns the property where the tree is.

Sutton had spotted the bears early Monday morning. She called the police to report the situation.

“They said just leave (them) alone, and they would come down,” Sutton said just before noon on Tuesday, with the bears still visible out her living room window. “But they haven’t come down.”

Also this week a Cherokee man was brought up on federal charges of dealing in poached bear parts, some of which are used in homeopathic treatments in Asia and elsewhere. Jon Ostendorff at the Asheville Citizen-Times wrote it up. His lead:

A Cherokee man must make a public apology for illegally selling 51 bear gall bladders, the U.S. Department of Justice ruled.

Last but by no means least was the misadventure in Cherokee, where a handler at one of the tourist attraction “bear parks” made famous recently by game show host Bob Barker was bitten by one of her charges. The feds are looking in to this incident.

Again, on the bear beat, Ostendorff:

Mary Clapsaddle, 75, who has been managing the park for about 20 years, was recovering at Mission Hospital from injuries to her hand and arm, said her son, Kole Clapsaddle. He owns the business.

She was airlifted to the hospital after the attack on Monday. A bear bit her while she was giving water to the animal about 12:45 p.m.

Clapsaddle said his mother broke safety rules when she stepped into a pen with a bear. He said handlers are supposed to place food and water in one part of the pen while the bear is secured in another part.

“She didn’t follow the rules,” he said. “If you follow the rules, you don’t get hurt.”

Here’s the rest of Ostendorff’s story.

REGIONAL-The ongoing conflict over usage rights on the Chattooga River is worth following, if, for no other reason, as a harbinger of things to come.

In its December issue, Blue Ridge Outdoors writer Graham Averill does a nice job of making the issue clear, and the magazine throws in maps, a timeline and a “headwaters highlights” section.

Here is Averill’s lead:

For three decades, paddlers have yearned to paddle the pristine waters of the Upper Chattooga River. Earlier this year, the U.S. Forest Service finally granted limited access of the Upper Chattooga to paddlers, but a flurry of legal threats—including a legal challenge from the paddling community—prompted the Forest Service to rescind their decision a few weeks ago, once again leaving boaters high and dry.

Paddlers have been banned from the entire 21-mile headwaters of the Chattooga and its tributaries since 1976, after the U.S. Forest Service divided the river in two parts due to a series of user conflicts. Citing fistfights, slashed boats, and gun play, the forest service separated the two user groups: Boating would be allowed on the lower Chattooga, but the upper 21 miles of the river and its headwaters would be reserved for fishing.

Another clip:

Many conservation groups, including Georgia Forest Watch and the Chattooga Conservancy, support the current zoning of the river into boating and non-boating sections. Other popular recreation areas like Tsali and Bent Creek are also zoned; some trails allow mountain bikes, ATVs or horses, while others are designated foot traffic only. Anglers also support the current zoning of the Chattooga, saying that it’s a more-than-equitable compromise: the 36-mile lower Chattooga is given to boaters, while the 21-mile upper Chattooga is protected for fishermen and hikers seeking a wilderness experience.

Ironically, no parties concerned in the Chattooga access issue seemed to be happy with the Forest Service’s recent decision. Soon after it was announced, the Forest Service was threatened with legal action from all sides: four separate appeals were filed by boaters, anglers, and conservation organizations. As a result, the Forest Service withdrew its decision to fully consider the concerns raised by the user groups.

Averill sources the Cullowhee-based group American Whitewater quite a bit in the story, and offers quotes from all sides.

Read the story here.

STATEWIDE–The North Carolina Utilities Commission has approved a 7 percent rate hike for Duke Energy customers.

The hike will increase Duke’s annual revenue by $315.2 million. Duke originally sought a $488 million increase in rates, but the Commission staff had argued that a $183 million increase for Duke would be sufficient. The final amount represents a compromise.

The rate hike will be phased in, with Duke customers seeing an initial 3.27% hike next month.The balance will come in January of 2011.

The hike is controversial, in part, because Duke plans to use part of the revenue to pay for its new Cliffside Steam Station, a large, coal-driven plant west of Charlotte. Cliffside is opposed energetically by environmentalists.

Read more here, from the Charlotte Business Journal.

Lower Falls (“Gulahiyi” photo)

CASHIERS–Ruminations from the Distant Hills shares a hike, some history and a few images from the Whitewater River, which flows south from Cashiers into the Palmetto State.

An excerpt:

The final stretch of the Whitewater River is the part that I will never see, since it is lost forever beneath the waters of Lake Jocassee, built by Duke Power in the 1970s. Among the worlds lost to the Jocassee damnation was the trail of the French botanist Andre Michaux who explored the Keowee and its headwaters in 1878 and 1788.

Somewhere between the Whitewater and the Toxaway Rivers, he took notes on one unusual plant. The subsequent efforts of botanists to find the Shortia galacifolia described by Michaux continued for a century before the mystery of the Oconee Bells was finally solved.

Read Gulahiyi’s post here.

GSMNP–Smoky Mountain News outdoor writer Don Hendershot wrote last week that the 2010 omnibus spending bill, due to be signed in a couple of weeks, might  include the long-awaited cash settlement that would (in theory) lay to rest Swain County’s North Shore Road controversy.

Hendershot quotes anonymous sources, and hints that the dollar amount could be greater than the projected $30 million.

Here’s an excerpt from Hendershot’s story:

After more fits, there was another start at construction back in 2000 when then Rep. Charles Taylor and then Sen. Jesse Helms appropriated $16 million for construction of the North Shore Road. Even though the $16 million was about $550 million short of the estimated cost of such a road, the appropriation spurred some Swain County residents to action.

The Citizens for the Economic Future of Swain County was created in 2001. Although totally lacking in acronym-imagination, the CEFSC did strike a chord with many Swain County residents and environmental groups with its proposal for a cash settlement in lieu of the improbable North Shore Road. Through some mathematical calisthenics the group came up with a settlement figure of $52 million.

Read the whole piece here

See a timeline through 2001, also from the Smoky Mountain News, here.

GSMNP-The Knoxville News-Sentinel reported over the weekend about cautious optimism on the part of Great Smoky Mountains National Park officials about their efforts to curtail the invasion of the hemlock woolly adelgid.

An excerpt:

“The work to preserve Eastern hemlock trees and forests in 2009 progressed and showed successes despite increased decline and obvious mortality of trees throughout the park,” the report states.

“‘Cautiously optimistic’ is a good term for it,” said park spokesman Bob Miller.

A three-pronged strategy, using a combination of predatory beetles, foliar treatments and systemic treatments, is being followed to destroy hemlock woolly adelgids on the trees.

Because of cost, accessibility issues and priorities given to most-visited areas, the treatment area is limited in scope and includes about 132,000 hemlocks in the park.

Read the story here.Read a post at Ruminations from the Distant Hills here.Our post “Saying Goodbye to the Hemlock”, from last year, is here.

DILLSBORO–Duke Energy on Monday asked appeals court judge Zoro Guice to block Jackson County’s efforts to condemn the 96-year-old Dillsboro Dam.

Duke Energy seeks to remove the dam to mitigate other hydro electric projects in the region, as part of a settlement reached over five years ago.

Jackson County commissioners feel the county was shortchanged in the settlement, and want to keep the dam and build a park nearby.

Read more from Jon Ostendorf at the Asheville Citizen-Times.

Raleigh News and Observer editorializes on this subject here.

STATEWIDE–The Raleigh News and Observer’s Mark Johnson reports today that the state of North Carolina will pay a half-billion dollars to clean up some 6,500 deteriorating underground storage tanks across the state.

The state maintains a fund to help take care of such tanks, which often hold fuel, leak as they age, and contaminate groundwater. Property owners are taking advantage of the fund in increasing numbers, and the state is looking for ways to mitigate the cost.

Among the possibilities: raising the motor fuel and kerosene inspection tax from 1/4-cent to 7/16-cent per gallon to generate more money for the cleanup fund, requiring commercial tank owners to buy insurance to cover cleanup costs, and requiring noncommercial tank owners to pay 20 percent of cleanup costs up to $5,000.

Jackson County residents became familiar with this problem two-and-a-half years ago, when an old tank alongside US 23/74 east of Sylva leaked and contaminated drinking water in the nearby residential neighborhood in Racking Cove.

The Tuckasegee Water and Sewer Authority eventually ran a line from Sylva to the community to provide clean water.

Read Johnson’s story here.

OTTO–The Land Trust for the Little Tennessee (LTLT) has awarded its 2009 Ramsey-Brunner Land Conservationist of the Year Award to Myra Waldroop and family for their conservation work on family property at Rainbow Springs, in the headwaters of the Nantahala River in Macon County.

The award, which is given to honor individuals who have made significant contributions to land conservation in LTLT’s project area, was presented at LTLT’s annual Fall Celebration at Tessentee Bottomland Preserve in Otto.

The 248-acre property conserved by the easement conveyed to LTLT by Waldroop and her family has numerous conservation values. It lies on either side of the Waterfall Scenic Byway which runs from Rosman to Murphy and is adjacent to National Forest System lands. There are prime farmland soils being farmed and productive forest land that is managed for timber harvest, and, last, but certainly not least, it has nearly 4,000 feet of Nantahala River flowing through it and over 700’ of Black Creek.

According to Myra Waldroop’s records, the family has owned property in Rainbow Springs since as early as 1853.

“My grandfather, C.W. Slagle, acquired land in Rainbow Springs over a number of years,” said Myra.

The family used the property for family vacations for many years. During the 20’s and 30’s the Ritter Lumber Company operated in one of the meadows complete with a thriving lumber town including post office, commissary, hotel and school. A railroad hauled lumber down the river to be shipped away.

In 1948, Myra’s father, Carl Slagle, retired to Rainbow Springs, and later, Myra inherited a portion of the her grandfather’s property where both of her daughters now live. There are many stories of four and five generations who have fished, hunted, and gathered with friends and family at “Rainbow”.

“Many family traditions live on,” says Myra. “With this long history, my family and I decided we wanted this property protected from development. The LTLT was our solution. We appreciate working with the folks at LTLT. A special thanks to Sharon for her patience as we worked out the details of the Deed of Conservation.”

In her presentation of the award to the Waldroop family, Sharon Taylor stated, “LTLT’s mission is to conserve the waters, forests, farms and heritage of the upper Little Tennessee and Hiwassee River valleys. However, we work with landowners on a purely volunteer basis, so it is somewhat opportunistic. When Myra Waldroop called to say she was interested in conserving a portion of the Family’s Rainbow Springs property, that opportunity fit our mission like a glove. I know that all of the conservation values are important to LTLT, and important to the Family, but the Waldroop Family conserved their land because of their love of the land and the heritage that the land represents.”

BRYSON CITY–Jim Casada churns out an amazing amount of outdoors writing for the Smoky Mountain Times, and his current series of book reviews is invaluable.

His most recent column takes a lengthy look at these hiking guidebooks of the Smokies:

Ken Wise’s “Hiking Trails of the Great Smoky Mountains.”

Russ Manning’s “100 Hikes in the great Smoky Mountains National Park”

“The Best of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park: A Hiker’s Guide to Trails and Attractions” by Russ Manning and Sondra Jamieson

Danny Bernstein’s “Hiking the Carolina Mountains.”

“North Carolina Hiking Trails” by Allen de Hart

Johnny Molloy’s “Trial by Trail: Backpacking in the Smoky Mountains,”

Michal Strutin’s “History Hikes of the Smokies”

Casada’s closing paragraph:

By all means, seek some armchair adventure through works such as those mentioned above, but the ultimate adventure, whatever the season, comes through being on the trail. Whether it’s a leisurely walk up lower Deep Creek – the sort scores of folks make daily – or one of those strenuous 20-plus mile ventures my brother Don enjoys, to be afoot in the park is to tread paths of wonder.

Read Casada’s column here.

ROBBINSVILLE-Zelerie Rose at the Graham Star writes that $120,000 of funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act supports a program to control invasive plant species and support habitat of two federally-listed endangered species along the Cheoah River.

Here’s a clip from Rose’s story:

The three-year project started this fall, involves nine miles of river and will protect the Virginia Spiraea, a federally-threatened shrub, and the Appalachian Elktoe, a federally-endangered mussel.

The treatment of the non-native species such as mimosa, Oriental bittersweet, yam, privet, Japanese honeysuckle, princess tree, kudzu, and multiflora rose, is the collaborative effort of Western North Carolina Alliance, the Cherokee Environmental Natural Resource Office, and North Carolina National Forests.

“Our job is to work with the various organizations involved in the project and educate them about non-native invasive plants,” said Bob Gale, ecologist for WNC Alliance. “These plants were introduced both intentionally and accidentally and have no natural controls limiting their spread. Left untreated they can threaten or endanger native habitats and native wildlife species.”

Read the story from the Graham Star here.