The Little Tennessee Watershed Association presented a Municipal Watershed Assessment on the ecological health of Cartoogechaye Creek, the water supply watershed for the town of Franklin and outlying areas on Monday, on November 3^rd at Town Hall.

This report combines a recent on the ground visual study of stream habitat and an assessment of data collected through the Little Tennessee Watershed Association’s Upper Little Tennessee Biomonitoring Program.

The heart of this report is a series of maps based on a riparian land use assessment and current land use data. Each map is supported by a written discussion. The findings of this report are relevant to present and future planning decisions for a sustainable water supply in Franklin and surrounding areas. It is the hope of the Little Tennessee Watershed Association that this report will be helpful as the Town of Franklin moves forward with a plan to provide future water services to the residents of Franklin.

During the summer of 2007, the Little Tennessee Watershed Association carried out biomonitoring at nine sites in the upper Cartoogechaye watershed – four on the Cartoogechaye Creek mainstem, and one each on the lower reaches of its five largest tributaries. The mainstem sites were located so as to bracket the major tributaries. Eight of these sites had been monitored from two to thirteen times previously over the 18-year period. An additional site was also added a few hundred yards above the intake for the Franklin Water Treatment Plant.

The majority of the visual riparian survey work was completed in a report prepared for the Land Trust for the Little Tennessee in 1999, and this survey was updated in December 2007 and January 2008 with a two week long field assessment of stream conditions in Cartoogechaye Creek and its five major tributaries.

The production and distribution of this report was funded with help from the Region A Council of Governments, the NC Department of Water Quality, Macon County, the Land Trust for the Little Tennessee, the World Wildlife Fund, the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, and the Janirve Foundation.

This report will be available for download as a PDF very soon, so please check back with us again!