Section 319
NUNPUINT SOURCE PROGRAM SUCCESS STORY
Town Leads Efforts to Improve the Cullasaja River
Waterbodv Improved Sedimentation from historical logging, steep slopes and
r -v, highly erodible soils caused biological impairments in the
Cullasaja River. As a result, the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural
Resources (NCDENR) added portions of the Cullasaja River and Mill Creek (5.7 miles total)
to the 2002 North Carolina Clean Water Act (CWA) section 303(d) list of impaired waters
for failing to support their aquatic life designated uses. Watershed partners implemented
numerous best management practices (BMPs) and developed a watershed action plan
to achieve water quality improvements, leading to the 2012 removal of 3.7 miles of the
previously impaired streams from the impaired waters list.
Problem
The Cullasaja River is in Macon County at the
headwaters of the Little Tennessee River Basin in
western North Carolina's Blue Ridge Mountains.
This scenic river forms on the Highlands Plateau
above the resort town of Highlands before plunging
2,000 feet through a dramatic gorge to join the Little
Tennessee River in the town of Franklin (Figure 1).
The 14.4-square-mile upper Cullasaja River water-
shed is bordered by the Tennessee Valley Divide on
three sides, and consists of highly erodible soils,
steep slopes and sandy substrate within streams.
The steep slopes and erosive soils result in signifi-
cant sediment loading and loss of topsoil through-
out the watershed. Historical logging, damming
of streams and expanding development within the
watershed have further exacerbated the sediment
pollution problem.
North Carolina's water quality standards state that
waters must achieve a biological integrity score
of at \easigood-fairio be considered supportive
of aquatic life. The NCDENR's Division of Water
Resources conducted water quality studies in
1999 and 2000 and found fair biological integrity,
based on macroinvertebrate counts, in the main
stem Cullasaja River above Mirror Lake (seg-
ment 2-21-(0.5), later subdivided into segments
2-21-(0.5)a (3.7 miles long) and 2-21-(0.5)b (0.7 miles
long)), and in the 1.3-mile-long Mill Creek segment
(2-21-3). As a result, NCDENR added these seg-
ments to the state's 2002 CWA section 303(d) list of
impaired streams for failure to support aquatic life.
n Town of Highlands
+ Cuilasaja Club BMPs
•f Town of Highlands BMP
Highlands Child Center
+ Highlands Fall Country Club
__z s ^ , /^
Cullasaja River/
Figure 1. The Cullasaja River watershed is in western North
Carolina. Partners installed practices at numerous locations.
Project Highlights
To support the restoration of these waterbodies,
NCDENR completed the Little Tennessee River
Basin Plan in 2002. The Cullasaja River Watershed
Strategy and Action Plan was then created in 2004
as part of a Regional Geographic Initiative grant
from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and
the Cullasaja Watershed Association of Highlands,
North Carolina.
As a part of the aforementioned plans, beginning
in 2003 the town of Highlands funded numer-
ous BMPs to improve conditions in both the
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Figure 2. The town of Highlands installed permeable
pavement at the Highlands Community Child
Development Center.
Cullasaja River and Mill Creek. The town installed a
240,000-gallon underground stormwater manage-
ment treatment and detention system in Town
Park, which treats 14.6 acres of commercial area.
The town also replaced three culverts in the Mill
Creek drainage area and installed a 2,000-square-
foot rain garden and 6,400 square feet of perme-
able pavement at the Highlands Community Child
Development Center (Figure 2). In addition, the
Cullasaja Club (a golf and family club community)
funded and implemented numerous BMPs along
the upper Cullasaja River, including maintaining
10 acres of no-mow, no-fertilizer areas along steep
slopes; improving 3,500 feet of riparian buffer; and
installing new irrigation systems in 2011 (Figure 3).
In 2012 the Land Trust for The Little Tennessee
River used CWA section 319 funds to develop an
Upper Cullasaja Watershed Restoration Plan to help
guide future implementation efforts.
Results
After years of ratings of poor or fair, August 2010
sampling data demonstrated that the water quality in
the larger Cullasaja River segment had improved to
good-fair (Table 1). Based on these sampling results,
NCDENR determined that segment 2-21-(0.5)a of the
Cullasaja River now supports its aquatic life designat-
ed use and removed it from the impaired waters list
in 2012, representing an improvement in 3.7 miles of
the 5.7 miles of stream originally listed in 2002. The
momentum of water quality improvement continues
throughout the watershed. NCDENR hopes that past
and future implementation efforts will translate into
improvements in the second Cullasaja River segment
and the Mill Creek segment in the near future.
Figure 3. The Cullasaja Club improved the health of
the riparian buffer along the Cullasaja River.
Partners and Funding
Many stakeholders have been active in the
watershed restoration effort, including the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency, the NCDENR
Division of Water Resources, Upper Cullasaja
Watershed Association, Land Trust for the Little
Tennessee River, the town of Highlands, the
Highlands Community Child Development Center,
Highlands Biological Foundation, the Coweta Long-
Term Ecological Research Program, the Cullasaja
Club, Watershed Science, and the Jackson-Macon
Conservation Alliance. Funds supplied by the town
of Highlands (including $75,000 for the rain garden
and permeable pavement project) and the Cullasaja
Club supported the installation of BMPs. The
2012 Upper Cullasaja Watershed Restoration Plan
project received over $78,596 in funding to guide
future watershed improvements in the Cullasaja
River, adding to the thousands of dollars that past
projects have invested in the watershed. Of the
$78,596 in funding, the CWA section 319 grant
program contributed $16,125 for the creation of a
watershed plan.
Table 1. Cullasaja River Biological
Assessment Sampling Data
(at U.S. route 64 sampling site)
Sample Collection Date
8/2010
7/2004
7/2001
6/1999
10/1996
10/1991
Cullasaja River Rating
Good-Fair1
Fair
Fair
Fair
Fair
Poor
Meets water quality standard for aquatic life support.
UJ
O
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Office of Water
Washington, DC
EPA841-F-15-001A
January 2015
For additional information contact:
Jason Meador, Land Trust for Little Tennessee River
828-524-2711 ext. 309 • jmeador@ltlt.org
Heather Jennings, North Carolina Division of
Water Resources
919-807-6437 • heather.b.jennings@ncdenr.gov
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