Watershed Association of the Tuckasegee River
WATR is a grassroots organization working to improve your water quality and habitat of the Tuckasegee River Basin.
The Tuckasegee River watershed supplies the drinking water and ecosystem foundation for Swain and Jackson Counties. What happens upstream, downstream, and all around the watershed impacts all of us directly.
WATR Headlines
- January Public Meeting launches activities through July
- Upcoming events for January, February and March (Read the Blog page also for Roger’s take)
- WATR given “partnership” award
- WATR members join Cherokee artisans, looking for the perfect cane stalk!Scroll down for these stories — and more!
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Upcoming events:
WATR January Public Meeting –
What: Meet Board Nominees,
WATR Annual Meeting
What: Vote on WATR Business
Speaker TBA
When: Monday 2/27/2012 Save the date.
Fifth Annual Double Green Party
What: A rollicking St. Paddie’s Day celebration. Experience one beneficial use of clean water.
Bring a hotdish, salad, or dessert. You know the routine!
When: Saturday, 3/17/2012 6 PM
Where: Nantahala Brewery, Bryson City.
January Planning Meeting launches our activities and events through July
For the first time, WATR staff and members are assembling a list of activities and events for the coming season (as best we can). With this list, members, new and old, can identify where and how they want to be involved in the coming months. As importantly, we can now harness social PR tools to get the word out and recruit participants.
Julie Thorner explains the new website and asks for input.
Our director Roger outlined several projects, including: Creek cleanups — we really need neighborhood leaders who want to stand up and say — “let’s organize a cleanup for our creek.” WATR can step in and help make it happen. ——- Ken Brown presented ideas for Watch our Water, identifying muddy creeks and the erosion sources — reporting them to agencies — mapping them and tracking the results. —- Sae Smyrl invited folks to join the Monteith Farmstead Park Clean Up Team. They meet the first Saturday of each month. —-Nick invited folks to attend our annual “Live Stake Workhop” to learn how to repair eroded streambanks. The event is planned for 2/25 or 3/3. —– Julie Thorner, our new WATR PR guru, talked about making Facebook and our website more responsive to our members needs. “Do you have a information and a point of view regarding our water resources?” Help us all by contributing a blog!!! —— Rick Queen, WATR VP, pitched the need for more and more effective fundraising. Details later.
Candidates for the board!
Bill Kane, WATR Board Member, described the board member nomination process, then opened the floor for nominations. Newest nominees are: Ken Brown, owner of a construction company and leader of the local Western North Carolina Alliance chapter; and Jennifer Cooper, interim manager – Service Learning, at WCU. They join board nomininated candidates: Julie Thorner, owner of WillowWorks Inc marketing company, and TJ Walker, owner of Dillsboro Inn and one of WATR’s founding members. Board member Clark Lipkin announced that he is stepping off the board to concentrate on his work on the Jackson County Planning Commission. Thanks for all your work with WATR, Clark!
How many board positions need to be filled? The bylaws allow for up to 5 new board members (in addition to those with continuing terms and those up for re-election) and now we have 4, as listed above. Board elections will take place Monday, Feb 27, at our Annual Business Meeting. HOORAY for these nominees
Partnership Award
Holly Krake, left, a US Forestry worker and liaison specialist for the Oconoluftee Job Corp CCC Center, presents Roger Clapp, excutive director of WATR, a Conservation Partner Award in recognition of WATR’s work with Job Corps students on the Monteith Park trails project in Dillsboro. Job Corps students have helped cut trails, erect signs, build steps, and clear invasive plants at the Scotts Creek Stream Buffer Demonstration Trails. At right is Jennifer Cooper, WATR member and MFP teammate.
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Harvesting group moves toward an impressive river canebrake near Murphy
Harvesting River Cane gives us a new appreciation of Cherokee Artisan Baskets
Lucille Lossiah brings out cane she has cut
Five WATR members traveled with Cherokee artisans to harvest the perfect canes that are suitable for traditional weaving projects: mats and baskets.
We joined two Cherokee artisans, Jim Long and Lucille Lossiah, and their six assistants who are learning the craft as we headed down to the Murphy area.
At the Marble Springs Outdoor Education Area we were shown what makes acceptable cane material. The cane must be straight, dark green indicating sufficient age, and no signs of branching for the bottom portion of the culm (the technical name for the stalk). Even a bit of residual branching renders the derived cane split unusable. The crafts people cut the cane and we pulled them out of the brakes and helped collected them for the trip home.
Special thanks go to Beth Johnson for gathering the Cherokee foraging partners. Beth works with the RTCAR (or fully spelled out: Revitalization of Traditional Cherokee Artisan Resources). Tony Ward, a staff member of the Hiwassee River Watershed Coalition, served as host by showing us which canebrakes were available for harvesting. Thanks, Tony!
The WATR group included Shirley Veenstra, Judy Knight, Bill Lee, Ken Brown, and Roger Clapp. Also in the Cherokee artisan group were Fidel Raya, Weylon Long, Jane Wolfe, Nancy Wolfe, and Dorothy Wood – an extension-service intern. We ended up with a warm meal and lively conversation at the Blue Mountain Café.
Jim Long strips a staalk of cane as WATR member Judy Knight watches
We will plan more events with Cherokee artisans in the new year, and we will launch the main activity – finding and getting permission for harvesting new river cane brakes in our watershed.
We will be dividing the roads and creeks in Swain and Jackson, where volunteers will look for more cane brakes. When we find them we will encourage landowners to sign simple agreements allowing artisans to occasionally harvest (sustainably!) cane for use in traditional crafts. How cool to be part of this age-old practice! How better to build friendships within the tribe and the watershed community? Call the office if you would like to join in!
Several years ago this effort was started by Adam Griffith, then a student and now a WCU staff member. He mapped cane sources, mostly near Cullowhee, and he generated an online map. Interested? Follow this link.
– Roger Clapp
Fall Meeting Brings Good Turnout and New Faces
WATR held its Fall Meeting at a new place: the atrium of the Jackson County Library in the totally remodeled courthouse on Monday 10/7.
Roger Clapp reviewed the programs and events of the past summer and described upcoming projects. The association’s biggest accomplishment is the Stream Buffer Demonstration Trails in Monteith Farmstead Park, located in Dillsboro. The South Trail has a series of informative signs describing why a natural buffer is critically important to a health creek.
Clapp announced that WATR would be kicking off the new “River Cane Preservation & Education in the Tuckasegee Watershed” Project with a trip to the Murphy area to help harvest river cane for Native- American Crafts. We also continue to need volunteers for Watch our Water and the Monteith Farm Park cleanup and trail building.
Colyn Petty and Blair Allman, students from Swain High’s Environmentally Aware Club, described recent events that were facilitated by WATR including field trips to investigate the endangered Appalachian Elktoe Mussel and collect macro invertebrates in Deep Creek. Together we are planning an Eco Movie night in Bryson City and Earth Day celebrations in Swain. If we find volunteer coordinators, WATR will work with more schools in the watershed.
The highlight of the evening was a presentation and discussion led by Dr. Dan Perlmutter. He is spearheading an effort to develop the WADE Center – Watershed Action and Discovery Experience Center – a facility where children can explore watershed science, culture, and arts by hands-on learning. Dan quipped that “children” means kids from the smallest to oldest adults – everyone who wants to exercise his/her childlike curiosity. The plan is in its formative stages. Interested in helping? Contact Dan at 226-5745.
Visit the Trail! Preserve our stream environments!
On Friday 9/16, the educational signs were installed at our interpretive nature trail in Dillsboro, NC. If you are in the area, please stop by and take a short walk along the trail. The trail ends with an ecological riddle that you can probably solve after your first visit. By clicking on the tab at the top, you can take a quick gander of the trail and signs. For out-of-towners and anyone who is just too impatient to visit the trail, you can scroll down to the riddle’s answer.
Don’t forget to go across the tracks to the North Trail which does not yet have interpretive signs in place.
New links for erosion & sediment control training
Check them out by clicking on the “For Contractors” at the left.
Generous WATR Members Make the Goal!
Thanks to recent new memberships and gifts, many of which are second and third gifts from committed members, – the Association received $10,104, pushing through the $10,000 goal for Membership Year 2011.
A big WATERSHED HUG, to everyone who chipped in, to make this WATR’s best fundraising year ever.
Watch for a “Love Offering” appeal over the next couple of weeks and a launch of our 2012 Membership Year Drive in the fall.
News and Events You Want to Know
Swain students search for endangered Appalachian elktoe mussel.
Cold water and the threat of rainfall did not stop the Swain High Environmentally Aware Club from searching for the endangered Appalachian elktoe mussel in theTuckasegeeRiver. Read about their May 17 trip on the WATRline News page.
Good News; Challenging News
A proposed WATR project, “Experiential Environmental Education in Dillsboro, Jackson County” was accepted and will be funded by Resourceful Communities, a program of the The Conservation Fund headquartered in Chapel Hill. The challenging news is that we asked for $15,000 and we have been awarded only $5000. Details on the WATRline News page.
Plan your next outing with WATR – view our calendar here Event Calendar 2011
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