Editor’s Note: The author Debbie Page is on the FLANO Board of Directors.
BY DEBBIE PAGE
debbiepage.iredellfreenews@gmail.com
About 40 Friends of Lake Norman State Park (FLANO) volunteers celebrated National Public Lands Day on Saturday morning by cleaning up the swim beach area, trimming trees, planting grass seed to prevent erosion, and creating a trail head access to the Lakeshore Trail to the swim beach.
Afterwards, they were invited to a pizza lunch and the FLANO annual meeting to select new board members and hear a presentation on the importance of forests in preserving clean water. Stacy McGlamery and Blane Gregory joined the FLANO Board of Directors by unanimous consent.
The day of activities concluded with a hike along the Alder Trail, led by former park superintendent Greg Schneider, to search for late summer wildflowers, plants and animal signs along the trail.
FLANO CONTRIBUTIONS
Park Superintendent Scott Avis said the park, with its limited staff, could not operate without the teams of volunteers who help clean up debris, improve park amenities, and help with hikes, tours, and programs.
FLANO, which spent about $1,000 on materials on the morning’s project, has contributed about 1,500 volunteer hours to the park since the group was founded in 2018. The group also puts on bike, paddling, hiking and improvement project events for park visitors.
“We want to get people outside and give back to the community,” said President/Treasurer Katie Wurtz.
FLANO, a nonprofit under the Friends of State Parks (FSP) umbrella, has received about $20,000 in grants so far, and collect donation box funds (about $6,000 annually) to pay for park improvements, which the state park staff is not allowed to do.
FLANO also can access FSP Youth in Parks – Environmental Education (YIP-EE) grants to pay for bus, driver, and fuel costs for school groups to visit the park for educational programs (https://ncfsp.org/YIP-EE).
Interested educators can contact Wurtz at flanosp@gmail.com for more information. FLANO volunteers also can assist rangers with school groups for programming and hikes.
SUPERINTENDENT’S REPORT
The park started in 1962 with 1,328 acres and has grown to almost 2,000 acres, with the park looking at various adjoining properties to purchase as funds become available. The park has 800,000 visitors annually.
Avis said the park has had private groups hold two triathlons and some endurance runs, and a 50K on the bike trails is scheduled for December.
“The park serves a lot of recreational needs for the area, and we are happy to provide them for folks,” said Avis. He noted the growth of community interest in outdoor activities since the pandemic, and the rangers work hard to create recreational and educational opportunities and to teach visitors about the park’s natural resources.
“The community values this park. It’s part of the daily routine for many.”
In 2020, the park added 11 full water/sewer hookups and six popular camper cabins, which have doubled the park’s annual sales revenue.
The park also has five group camps recently renovated by FLANO, 33 campsites, a swim beach, four large picnic shelters, and a community building. The most popular draw is the 35 miles of biking/hiking trails, which are managed by Tarheel Trailblazers volunteers.
The extensive state park has only four full-time rangers, two administrative staff, four maintenance staff, and one superintendent position to run the park, along with 21 seasonal part-time workers who are mostly summer help at the swim beach.
Avis is happy that the state has added an additional ranger and maintenance position, for which he is now hiring, but the challenges of frequent staff turnover have been continuing. However, Avis is proud of the “good safe place we provide for recreation with our small staff.”
The park staff is working to slow traffic through the park to private adjoining neighborhoods and to park attractions. They have installed more biker/hiker crossing signs and are considering adding speed bumps and speed monitoring stations.
“Some visitors are going too fast, which is a danger to people and wildlife,” said Avis. Two accidents have occurred on the bridge, with damage yet to be fixed, and the gates have been demolished in the past by drivers under the influence.
CLEAN WATER STARTS WITH A HEALTHY FOREST
Board member Vicki Taylor, who works with the Catawba-Wateree Initiative, shared some facts about the Catawba Wateree River Basin, which has 300 river miles, 5,680 square miles of watershed, and covers 3.6 million acres over two states.
Sixty percent of the area is forested or natural, with 12 percent of the watershed conserved. An estimated 2.4 million people live in the basin, with rapid growth continuing.
The basin has 11 reservoirs, 18 public water utilities, 13 hydroelectric facilities (producing 840 megawatts), two coal or gas fired power plants (3,156 MW), and two nuclear stations (4,626 MW).
Taylor noted that “thousands of miles of streams and tributaries are the real source of our water. Every drop carries with it a legacy gained from the land over which it flows before it enters a raw water intake on its way to our faucets.”
Noting the decrease in evapo-transpiration with the increase in impervious surface (concrete, asphalt, etc.), Taylor said that one inch of rainfall on one acre of woods produces no runoff, but one inch of rain on an acre of asphalt will produce 27,000 gallons of runoff, which affects both water quantity and quality through flashiness (how quickly flow in a river or stream increases and decreases during a storm) and increased sediment.
Taylor explained that rivers flow within watersheds that drain all the streams and rainfall to a common outlet, a river that lies between ridges that define the boundaries between watersheds. “That’s why we call the area around a river a river basin.”
Watersheds are polluted through “point” (a specific, identifiable source) and “non-point” pollution, which can come from unknown sources of sediment, pesticides, toxins, organic matter, oil or grease, smokestacks, or household products that reach the water system from residential, agricultural, and commercial development.
Taylor said preserving forests in the river basin is important to reduce volatility of flows, sedimentation and pollution, to help preserve storage capacity in reservoirs, to reduce water treatment costs, to keep water cool, and to provide multiple other public benefits, including jobs, recreation, wildlife, and clean air.
“In short, they provide reliability and resilience for our water supply and quality of life,” said Taylor.
Taylor said a Duke Energy Relicensing study found that “our water supply will be insufficient to meet demands by 2050 unless we change how we manage our water supply.”
An RTI Report and Model showed that land use change is the biggest driver in flow and sediment change and identified areas most critical to protect. This “natural infrastructure” complements the built infrastructure.
Even with suggested mitigation measures, there is still considerable development, but Taylor noted “it is more concentrated and key ‘hot spots’ are conserved to protect the most vulnerable areas.”
The economic benefits of preserving forests to protect the river basin are many, according to Taylor.
Every $1 for source water protection saves $27 on water treatment (Source: Winecki 2012). A 10 percent increase in forest cover reduces treatment and chemical costs by 20 percent (AWWA 2004). A New York City filtration avoidance waiver invested $2 billion in watershed instead of a projected $8 billion to $10 billion in treatment costs.
Taylor said individuals can support these conservation efforts in a variety of ways, including supporting natural lands, parks, open space, and local land trusts, learning about zoning, storm water protection, and best management practices, and just enjoying being part of a healthy ecosystem.
LEARN MORE
For more information on protecting forests and rivers, visit the Catawba-Wateree Initiative, Catawba Lands, the Catawba-Wateree Management Group, the Catawba Riverkeeper, the Catawba Lands Conservancy, the Foothills Conservancy of NC, and The Conservation Fund.
ABOUT FLANO
To learn more about FLANO and its work, visit https://www.friendsoflakenormanstatepark.org/ or on Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/FriendsofLakeNormanStatePark/.