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WATR describes pollution in Scotts Creek
By Derek Hodges
Scotts Creek is dirty. Real dirty.
That’s the message county commissioners got during their March 20 meeting from Watershed Association of the Tuckaseigee River President Roger Clapp.
Clapp, at the meeting to give WATR’s quarterly report, brought good and bad news. While some local waterways are plagued by fecal coliform and sediment, for the most part they are clean, he said.
“We’ve got water in this county to brag about in many, many ways,” Clapp said.
The low point in local waterways is Scotts Creek, Clapp said. On average the creek contains about eight times the legal exposure limit for fecal coliform, he said. To put that in perspective, the water that flooded New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina was 10 times the limit, he said.
“Day in and day out, we’ve got a big problem on Scotts Creek when it comes through Dillsboro,” Clapp said.
Most of the pollution enters the stream somewhere between the Community Service Center in Sylva and its intersection with the Tuckaseigee River in Dillsboro, and is probably caused by aging sewer pipes, Clapp said.
In addition to Scotts Creek’s contamination, Clapp said it also has sediment problems, mostly from construction site runoff.
The stream has become such a problem that WATR recommends rafting companies not put in near the mouth of Scotts Creek at Dillsboro’s Tuckaseigee River public access. Rafters will be safer if they go a short distance upstream and avoid Scotts Creek’s flow, he said.
WATR members have plans to help clean up Scotts Creek and other waterways in the area. Their main focuses are research and educating the public, Clapp said.
The group plans to use $40,000 to install a “public turbidity meter.” The meter will display the amount of sediment in Scotts Creek in much the same way digital thermometers at local businesses show the time and temperature. A daily reminder of what condition the water is in might encourage local residents to work for cleaner streams, Clapp said.
Commissioner Joe Cowan agreed that research and education are the keys to fighting the bad water problem.
“If we’re ever going to do anything about (the problem), we’re going to have to know what it is,” Cowan said.
WATR, which received $8,000 from the county this year, will hold a work session at 7 p.m. Monday, March 27, in Sylva Town Hall.
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