Members of the Middle Nolichucky Watershed Alliance work throughout the year to protect its namesake river. On Wednesday, Alliance members canoed part of the river, to remind themselves why.

The Watershed Alliance is a loose association of groups and individuals who are interested in protecting and enhancing the water quality of the Nolichucky, including the tributaries that drain into it.

Partially funded by the Tennessee Valley Authority and local county government, the Watershed Alliance’s focus is primarily on Greene County. A similar group, the Upper Nolichucky Watershed Alliance, focuses mostly on Unicoi and Washington counties.

In addition to members of the Alliance’s board, several other interested persons took the opportunity for a guided canoe trip and a sandwich lunch afterward at Davy Crockett Dam.

In all, 21 people took the trip, which was led by Dana Ball and Chuck Capps of the Cedar Creek Environmental Learning Center.

They were rewarded for their efforts by beautiful views of the river, going for about two miles from near the dam to above Kinser Park. Great blue herons were spotted, along with a large great egret, a kingfisher, two black-crowned night-herons, and a large muskrat.

Numerous small fish were also seen jumping. Chris Cooper, a watershed specialist with the Tennessee Valley Authority, said that many of the smaller fish that live in the Nolichucky are just as colorful as tropical fish, but are seldom seen.

Later this month at a three-day Conservation Camp at Davy Crockett Birthplace State Park, which is just upriver, Cooper said he hopes to be able to show local school children tangerine darters, which are bright and colorful, and possibly sharphead darters, which he said are pretty and which live only in the Nolichucky River.

Colorful, Little Fish Here

Cooper said rivers in Costa Rica in Central America are noted for colorful fish, “but they are nothing compared to what we have in the Nolichucky.”

This area has species that are unique to it, Cooper said, including quite a few that are endangered or in need of management to help them continue to thrive.

“This is a great area, and we need to take care of it properly,” Cooper said.

Silt buildup in the Nolichucky River is “almost unbelievable,” Cooper warned, saying it has taken its toll on some fish species.

However, the Nolichucky continues to be one of the best rivers in the Southeast for smallmouth bass, according to numerous experts.

Taking care of the Nolichucky’s watershed includes dealing with storm water, Greeneville Alderman Sarah Webster told the group.

Webster heads a task force working on Greeneville’s efforts to comply with federal and state Storm Water II requirements.

The task force is finishing the first year of a five-year process, she said. The first year involved assessing storm-water runoff problems in Greeneville. The second year will focus on “figuring out ways to put in place” various corrective measures, Webster said.

The Greeneville Public Works Department is beginning a three-year plan and survey of storm-water runoff problems and solutions, she said.

“There are lots of problems we have to address,” Webster said.

She said that although Greeneville has been required to begin this process already, “Greene County will have to do it too, in a couple of years,” though the requirements in the county will not be as specific as those in the more densely populated city.

Candy Adams, director of Keep Greene Beautiful and this year’s chairman of the Watershed Alliance, briefed those present before the trip. She said that at the Alliance’s September meeting, Gary McGill of McGill Engineering will report on his work in drafting Greeneville’s Storm Water II ordinance.

Dam Built In 1913

Clint Jones, a TVA watershed specialist who normally works on the Clinch River, told the group that the Nolichucky Dam that forms Crockett Lake was built in 1913 by a private company to generate hydroelectric power.

The dam and reservoir were acquired by TVA in 1945, about the time that Douglas Dam was being formed.

In 1972, TVA ceased power production at the dam, because silt had accumulated behind it to such an extent that power could not be generated efficiently.

Though the dam is 94 feet high, Jones said, only about 6 feet of water are impounded behind it. The rest of the space is filled with silt.

Much of that silt came from North Carolina, where virtually unregulated mining of mica and feldspar took place until the 1970s.

Today, he said, silt from North Carolina is less of a problem than runoff from development and agriculture along the river’s many tributaries that carries pesticides and animal wastes into the river.

The Crockett Lake reservoir is about six miles long, he said, and the watershed above the dam covers about 1,183 square miles.

The Nolichucky River “is famous for fishing and kayaking,” Jones said, especially just below the dam in Greene County and some distance above it, in Unicoi and Washington counties.

The Nolichucky River was once home to a wide variety of edible mussels, he said, but most species “have been lost because of silt.”

Many other species of mussels are endangered, Jones said, both here and in other parts of the larger Clinch River watershed.

Filling of the Crockett reservoir by silt “has created more of a wetland habitat” in much of the former lake area, Jones said.

TVA is in the process of doing an environmental impact study on the Nolichucky Dam and Crockett Lake, he said.

The study, now more than two years overdue, is not yet completed. TVA earlier identified five options: (1) doing nothing, (2) acquiring additional land around the reservoir to lessen TVA’s liability in the event of a major flood (3) dredging silt from behind the reservoir to increase the dam’s ability to impound water, and (4) lowering the dam, accompanied by dredging, and (5) removal of the dam, accompanied by extensive dredging.

Removal of the dam was said to be the most costly of the options, estimated several years ago by TVA at about $150 million.

Jones said Wednesday that he did not think that option was likely.

He said bass fishermen would object strenuously to removal of the dam, or even lowering it, because silt from the demolition and from the lake flowing downstream after removal or lowering would ruin the smallmouth population for the foreseeable future, and would also negatively impact Douglas Lake, downstream.

Removal (or lowering) of the dam also would destroy some of the wetland habitat that has resulted from the silt build-up.

The river trip’s participants were provided with life jackets, sunscreen and insect repellent, and given a canoe safety lecture before they set off.

Adams led the group on a quarter-mile walk to the canoes, after which they had to pair up and drag their canoes about 50 yards to the river, where Capps helped them get into the water.

The only downside of the trip may have been mosquitoes and poison ivy, both of which were thick on the trail to the river.