A Beech Mountain proposed water intake and pump station upstream of the Watauga River Gorge looks unlikely as things stand today.
At a June 2 meeting, Watauga County Board of Commissioner Chairman John Welch said the board received about 200 emails regarding the intake in the past week.
Beech Mountain is revisiting plans to build a water intake along the Watauga River directly upstream of Guy Ford Road, where the world-class kayaking run through the Watauga Gorge starts.
The town wants to withdraw hundreds of thousands of gallons of water from the Watauga River daily during drought times. The water would travel 7.2 miles up to the town’s reservoir at Buckeye Lake on the backside of Beech Mountain.
Buried in an article about the commissioners adopting the 2020-21 budget on June 2, Watauga Democrat reported Commissioner Billy Kennedy said they were listening to concerns from its citizens and didn’t plan on reclassifying the river for the proposed intake.
He was quoted by the paper as saying the following:
“We’ve been very clear with them over the years. We think they need to fix their infrastructure first and stop losing over half of their water into the ground. They decided to spend money on this PR campaign and engineering instead.”
Watauga Commissioner Billy Kennedy at JUne 2 Meeting
Beech Mountain’s PR Problem and 2013 Rejection
Indeed.
In a February council meeting, when public comment wasn’t allowed, the Town of Beech Mountain admitted its PR problem when voting to revisit a potential intake on the Watauga River.
Last week, it rolled out a slick new website titled: Let it Flow. Watauga River Intake.
Beech Mountain Town Manager Bob Pudney said the town wanted to avoid “innuendo, a lot of rumors” and “poor public relations,” according to the Watauga Democrat.
These poor public relations, according to Pudney, led to the town failing to secure votes from the Watauga County Board of Commissioners to reclassify the river in 2013.
In 2013, I covered the public hearing prior to that vote. It was one of the rare instances where people of all political leanings seemed to agree.
A diverse group of citizenry – farmers, anglers, personal property rights advocates, outdoor recreationists, environmentalists, college students, business owners and more – spoke out against the project.
After listening to comments for a few hours, the politically-divisive board unanimously rejected the proposal.
To build an intake and use the river water as a drinking source, one step is the commissioners must approve of the reclassification of the Watauga River water basin to WS-IV.
Currently, the river is a Class B river and protected for recreational activities, according to the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality.
With a WS-IV reclassification comes land restrictions – something that was a non-starter for at least politically conservative commissioners and citizens when this issue came up in 2013.
Opponents have also called the reclassification of Watauga River a “slippery slope” that opens the river up to additional intakes and developments once the WS-IV Classification is granted.
Another non-starter it seems is the town’s current leaky infrastructure – something that Kennedy alluded to in his statement above.
The town has more than 50 miles of pipes that are older than they are long.
According to a 2011 Rothrock Engineering study funded by the town, Beech Mountain loses more than 67 million gallons of water annually or 56 percent of its water because of broken infrastructure built many years before the town incorporated in the ‘80s.
Another study – 2009 Rural Water Association – estimated water loss to be even higher at roughly 80 percent.
Watauga Riverkeeper Blasts Intake Proposal, PR Campaign
Many of those emails sent to the Watauga County commissioners likely came via MountainTrue/Watauga Riverkeepers coordinated communications campaign.
In an editorial prior to Kennedy’s comments, Watauga Riverkeeper Andy Hill called on Beech Mountain to “tackle the true root of the problem … instead of spending $2.15 million on pursuing permits for their intake and launching an expensive PR campaign.”
“The town could have used those dollars to tackle the true root of the problem: fixing their leaky pipes, investing in real water conservation programs and committing to a thorough and transparent exploration of other water storage methods,” Hill wrote.
Hill said the new website is filled with “misinformation” and claims that are “dubious at best.”
One interesting thing to note: Beech Mountain has declared a long-term water usage demand that is significantly higher per capita per day than any other surrounding townships.
When I reported on this Beech Mountain’s first proposal of an intake along the Watauga River in 2013, Donna Lisenby, the former Watauga Riverkeeper, noted that Beech Mountain’s long term per capita per day water demand was 9 times higher than Boone, for example.
On another front, the main picture Beech Mountain’s PR campaign is trying to paint is the following:
If the Watauga River was a 50-gallon rain barrel, then the town would only be withdrawing 2.4 cups of water from the river. Those 2-plus cups of water represent .316 percent of the barrel.
The town states that it wants to withdraw up to 500,000 gallons on an “as needed basis.” That 500,000 gallons per day represents .316 percent of the average daily flow of 158 million gallons per day.
Yet, the town chose to base that calculation on average daily flow (rather than drought levels) even when the town has stated it only needs to pull water in periods of drought.
Disingenuous math it seems.
“Even their claim that they will withdraw only during times of drought is dubious at best, as to properly maintain such a water pumping system would likely require pumping some amount throughout the year,” Hill wrote.
“Either way, the town has provided no plan for oversight of when they will be pumping and how much, nor for how thoroughly they have investigated alternatives to the water grab. While the town has assured us that the intake would only be used during times of drought, we know that extreme weather (including drought periods) is increasing in our region.”
So pulling 500,000 gallons of water per day out of the river during times of drought, Hill said, could put local recreational economies depending on the river at risk and would have “catastrophic” effects on aquatic habitats and trout populations.
2010 Drought along the Watauga River Gorge
The Watauga River Gorge is pretty much inaccessible.
Aside from kayakers, the only other people who usually get to enter the heart of the Watauga River Gorge are usually landowners. They walk down several hundred feet to the river banks from their house.
The gorge is “best kept secret” in the region, according to Larry Ingle, one of those property owners who cherishes the land.
Ingle lives downstream of the proposed intake and his property borders the middle of the classic 4.9-mile kayaking run through the rugged and pristine Watauga River Gorge.
Ingle mentioned that in times of severe drought you can hop and skip for miles without getting your feet wet. In fact, he did this during the 2010 drought.
His property fronts the Edge of the World rapids. In 2010, he noted that the dangerous rapids for those who aren’t expert paddlers were reduced to a 3-inch trickle. In “total shock,” he began exploring up stream to observe.
“For over two hours, I stumbled over rocks, both big and small. Rocks formerly under several feet of rapidly moving whitewater that the kayakers love. Eventually I reached the low water bridge at Guy Ford Road,” Ingle said.
“Nowhere along the route was there waters of any kind which were over 18 inches deep. I had walked for at least 2 miles mainly in the center of the river without getting wet.”
Kayaking the heart of the gorge wouldn’t be affected too much because in drought times the river level is unrunnable anyway, one kayaker told me in 2013. But still, Ingle’s story proves that the worst time to pull water out of the spring-fed river would be during a drought.
Intake Next Door to Guy Ford River Access
Directly upstream to the Guy Ford Road river access, which is a Watauga County Tourism Development Authority project currently being constructed, is the site of the intake proposal.
A few days ago, Watauga County Planning Director Joe Furman said the Guy Ford Road 2.3-acre river access should be complete by the end of the July. Project details of the Guy Ford Road river access are seen here.
As for the Beech intake proposal, Furman said that is a “long way to becoming a reality.” Furman mentioned the county’s unanimous rejection of the proposal in 2013 by commissioners.
“I don’t expect any change in that stance,” Furman said.