The Middle Nolichucky Watershed Alliance made final plans Wednesday for a cleanup of part of Holley Creek and its watershed that will take place Saturday, April 6.

In addition, the group asked its president, County Commissioner Tim Armstrong, to find out what efforts the county is making to secure permanent access to the county-owned watershed next to the Wal-Mart Distribution Center near Midway.

The creek cleanup will take place from 9 a.m. to noon, said Candy Adams, of Keep Greene Beautiful. A tent set up on the Big Lots parking lot will be the headquarters, she said.

Plans call for giving prizes for the most bags of litter and trash collected, the most volunteers from a group, and the most unusual find.

Participants will be asked to sign in at the tent, and sign a waiver, and donated prizes will be given away in a drawing at noon. The group will clean along the banks of Holley Creek from Snapps Ferry Road to Tusculum Boulevard, including a highly developed area on both sides of the U.S. 11E Bypass at the Greeneville Commons.

Adams said a group of about 45 service-learning students from Tusculum College will be cleaning up in the watershed, or drainage area, of the creek on March 26, because the school will be on break April 6. This group will concentrate on the Snapps Ferry Road area.

Mike McElroy, of the Natural Resources Conservation Service, will explain just what a watershed is at the start of both events.

If the designated area of the creek is cleaned before noon, volunteers will be given the opportunity to also clean up areas of the watershed.

Several organizations that are members of the Watershed Alliance will participate, Adams said, and several groups that helped with last year’s cleanup have indicated they will help again.

Groups that have already said they will participate include the Greene County Fishing & Hunting Club, the Marine Corps League, the Greeneville chapter of the Tennessee Ornithological Society, Trout Unlimited, the Greeneville Hiking Club and several Girl Scout and Boy Scout troops.

Wetlands Improvement

Armstrong reported that Steve Robbins of Vaughn & Melton had told him earlier Wednesday that he has so far been unsuccessful in negotiating a permanent access to the Wal-Mart wetlands project off Pottertown Road.

The Alliance has agreed to help the Greene County Fishing & Hunting Club maintain and improve the wetlands, and has lined up several sources of funding and other help from a variety of state and federal sources.

But all of the projects hinge on having permanent legal access to the site, and no such access currently exists, the group has been told.

The 40-acre wetlands was donated to Greene County in 1995, as part of the agreement used to entice the Wal-Mart Corp., which was then considering whether to locate the distribution center here or elsewhere.

Greene County paid Vaughn & Melton at least $96,000 to create an artificial wetlands on the land, to offset or “mitigate” the destruction of a smaller, natural wetlands that was destroyed to make the parking lot of the distribution center.

In October 1995, County Executive Alan Broyles told the Greene County Commission that maintenance of the wetlands was “entirely the county’s responsibility.”

Since then, the county initiated a lease agreement with the Fishing & Hunting Club regarding maintenance of the wetlands.

Officials of the Fishing & Hunting Club have told the Alliance that the earth and log dams built in 1995 were never completely effective in creating the slow “sheet flow” of water across the site that an artificial wetlands should have, and are now in danger of failing completely. As a result, the Alliance agreed to help the Fishing & Hunting maintain and enhance the wetlands.

Several state environmentalists have toured the Wetlands at the invitation of the Alliance and the Fishing & Hunting Club have concurred with the club’s assessment of the precarious state of the wetlands.

Armstrong said he has also investigated the possibility of access to the site from Gravel Woods Road, but the three lots that looked most workable on a map he was provided now have homes on them, and there is probably not enough land available.
Armstrong said he was a county commissioner in 1995 when the wetlands issue was raised in the final days before the agreement with Wal-Mart was signed.

“Wal-Mart was pulling out” because of the wetlands problem, until the agreement was worked out by the county, Armstrong said. He said that the agreement for the wetlands was put together in only a few days, and “looked fine” at the time.

“When they built it, they thought it accomplished what they needed,” Armstrong said. “Nobody anticipated the right of way” issue that came up later, he said.

Alliance member Alice Loftin noted that several of the offers of help and funding that the Alliance has lined up have time limits that will cause that help to be lost if permanent, legal right of way or access cannot be obtained.

Armstrong said he had a meeting with Broyles, County Attorney Roger Woolsey, Robbins and James McAfee of the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, and made them aware of the issues involved.

Armstrong said McAfee said that the wetlands has great potential as an educational site, but also pointed out that the county has maintenance responsibilities for the site that were spelled out in the original agreement, some of which have not been met.

Armstrong said he would convey the Alliance’s concerns expressed Wednesday to Robbins, and tell him that if nothing can be worked out in the next month, the Alliance would ask the county for help.