Mud Creek Watershed Restoration Plan - Henderson County Center

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Management StrategiesLead Agency orOrganization 1 Funding 2AG NON-POINT SOURCE POLLUTION continued….• Work with willing landowners to implement buffers and conventional conservation practicessuch as cover crops, no till, field borders, filter strips, on row crop land.• Initiate groundwater monitoring to determine if historic pesticides are moving from the soilsof ag fields to streams through the groundwater.• Work with willing landowners to implement animal waste practices such as livestockexclusion, feed/waste structures, stream crossing and buffer strips to protect water quality.HABITAT DEGRADATION• Restore 15,000 feet of the most critically eroding streams in the Mud Creek watershed toimprove habitat and water quality.S&WCDDWQS&WCDNCWRPACSPUnknownEQIP,ACSPNCWRP• Restore native vegetation along streams to stabilize streambanks and improve habitat. Local Governments Grants• Educate landowners about the importance of riparian buffers for streambank stabilization,water quality and habitat.• Evaluate the benefits of a buffer ordinance to protect lands adjacent to streams from futuredevelopment activities.Council, CELocal Governments• Permanently protect high priority wetlands and riparian buffers. Local Governments,CMLC, ACGCUPLAND SOURCES OF SEDIMENTATION• Consider the benefits of a local Sediment and Erosion Control Program to oversee localdevelopment activities.Local governmentsGrantsUnknownGrantsPermit Fees• Educate excavators and the public about how to control erosion. Local govts., CE Grants• Reduce the sediment pollution from unpaved roads, eroding road banks, and roadsideditches.Local governments,DOT, HOA1 Lead Agencies or Organizations are defined as follows: Council-Mud Creek Watershed Restoration Council; Local Governments – Henderson County,Hendersonville, Flat Rock, and Laurel Park; PEP-Partners for Economic Progress; S&WCD-Henderson Soil and Water Conservation District; CE-HendersonCounty Cooperative Extension; DWQ-Division of Water Quality; NCWRP-North Carolina Wetlands Restoration Program; CMLC-Carolina Mountain LandConservancy; ACGC-Apple Country Greenways Commission; DOT-North Carolina Department of Transportation; HOA-Home Owners Associations.2 ACSP-Agriculture Cost Share Program; EQIP-Environmental Quality Incentives Program; Grants – could include EPA 319 Nonpoint Source grants, NC CleanWater Management Trust Fund Grants; NCWRP-Wetland and Stream Restoration Funds; DOT-Regional road maintenance funds.DOTExecutive Summary Page vii
SECTION 1: PROJECT OVERVIEW1.1 IntroductionHenderson County is growing at arapid rate and much of this growthis occurring in the Mud Creekwatershed (Figure 1.1). Across thewatershed, developers areconverting apple orchards andpasture lands and clearing forestedhillsides for residential andcommercial developments. Waterquality problems associated withgrowth and development, as wellas agricultural practices, areevident in many streams in theMud Creek watershed. Mud Creekand two of its tributaries, ClearCreek and Bat Fork, are currentlyon the state’s 303(d) List ofImpaired Waterbodies. TheVolunteer Water InformationNetwork (VWIN) operated by theUniversity of North Carolina atAsheville rates many streams inthe Mud Creek watershed as belowaverage and poor. In addition tocurrent landscape changes anduses, historic practices such asdraining and filling wetlands,Figure 1.1: Map of the Mud Creek Watershed.channelizing streams and clearing streamside vegetation further compromise the integrity ofthese natural systems and exacerbate the effects of growth and development on stream health andincrease the intensity and frequency of flooding.In late 1998, the Division of Water Quality (DWQ) awarded Land of Sky Regional Council ofGovernments (LOSRC) a grant to work with local stakeholders to develop a plan for addressingwater quality problems in the Mud Creek watershed. In 1999, DWQ received a grant from theNC Clean Water Management Trust Fund (CWMTF) to identify causes and sources of streamimpairment through intensive monitoring and analysis and to develop watershed managementstrategies for eleven impaired watersheds across the state. The Mud Creek watershed wasselected as one of the eleven watersheds in the Watershed Assessment and Restoration Project(WARP). Concurrently, the NC Wetlands Restoration Program (NCWRP) was interested indeveloping a local watershed plan for the Mud Creek watershed in order to identify potentialrestoration projects that the NC Department of Transportation (DOT) can implement to fulfillfuture compensatory mitigation requirements. NCWRP agreed to collect additional stream andwatershed data to supplement WARP and LOSRC efforts already underway in the watershedthrough a partnership with the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA).Section 1: Project Overview Page 1FlatRock
Page 1 and 2: Watershed Restoration Plan forthe M
Page 3 and 4: 3.2.2 Strategies to Control Agricul
Page 5 and 6: EXECUTIVE SUMMARYFor the past three
Page 7: Table ES.1: Proposed management str
Page 12 and 13: SECTION 2: MUD CREEK WATERSHED CHAR
Page 14: 2.3 SoilsThree general soil associa
Page 17 and 18: 2.5 Water Quality and Stream Health
Page 19 and 20: To determine the biological health
Page 21 and 22: degradation. In addition, the WARP
Page 23 and 24: WARP also evaluated selected metals
Page 25 and 26: Channelized Streams: Channelization
Page 27 and 28: 2.6 Local Water Quality Initiatives
Page 29 and 30: Table 2.4: Summary of Zoning in the
Page 31 and 32: The Lawrence Group facilitated a we
Page 33 and 34: SECTION 3: RECOMMENDATIONSBased on
Page 35 and 36: and upper Mud Creek drainages have
Page 37 and 38: Flooding has been a persistent issu
Page 39 and 40: Flat Rock: Consider extending post-
Page 41 and 42: management improvements. Residentia
Page 43 and 44: 3.2 Agricultural Non Point Source P
Page 45 and 46: 3.2.2 Strategies to Control Agricul
Page 47 and 48: The Henderson County Soil and Water
Page 49 and 50: 3.3.2 Strategies to Address Habitat
Page 51 and 52: The Mud Creek Watershed Restoration
Page 53 and 54: Figure 3.10: Percent contribution o
Page 55 and 56: Increasing development in the Mud C
Page 57 and 58: SECTION 4: NEXT STEPS4.1 Present Wa
Page 59 and 60:
REFERENCESCenter for Watershed Prot
Page 61 and 62:
Technical SubcommitteeAPPENDIX BMud
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Mud Creek Watershed Restoration Plan - Henderson County Center

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