Displaying items by tag: little tennessee river

Paddlers observe contractors hired to clean up Hurricane Helene debris in a stretch of the Little Tennessee River that was largely spared the ravages of the storm.  Angela Martin/MountainTrue

Tell Army Corps, county officials to stop deforestation and river disturbance on the Little T

This editorial was provided by MountainTrue.

FRANKLIN, N.C. — The Little Tennessee River is home to 100 fish species alone — some found nowhere else in the world. The river and its adjacent greenway are also a beloved recreational resource for Macon County residents and tourists alike. But over the past few weeks, the banks of the river have been under assault by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers contractors, removing hundreds of trees, many of which were still alive. Take action now to prevent further damage to the river!

While large-scale debris removal continues to be a high priority in many parts of Western North Carolina in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, the Little Tennessee River did not experience those same impacts; it saw only normal flooding. Apart from a few localized areas, like the Cullasaja River across from Walmart, there is no need for disaster recovery-type debris removal in Macon County waterways. And yet, contractors started near Tryphosa Road in Otto and have been working their way down the river, removing trees and debris from the river channel and banks in areas where no flooding impacts occurred. 

The snail darter, which caused an epic battle around TVA plans to dam the Tellico River in the 1970s, was recently removed from the Endangered Species List. Jeremy Monroe/Tennessee Aquarium

The little fish that caused a maelstrom over a TVA dam project gets the last laugh

TELLICO — In a win for endangered species protected by federal law, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced this week the fabled snail darter’s recovery and removal from the Federal List of Threatened and Endangered Wildlife. 

Native to the Tennessee River watershed in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and Tennessee, the fish has long been an Endangered Species Act icon thanks to conservation efforts to save its habitat starting in the 1970s, when the Tennessee Valley Authority proposed construction of a dam on the Little Tennessee River. The snail darter (Percina tanasi) was central in the 1978 U.S. Supreme Court case Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill, which solidified the scope of the then recently passed ESA.