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Grant to pay Sylva $3.5 million to protect former watershed
By Lynn Hotaling and Justin Goble

Sylva officials learned last week that the town will receive $3.5 million in exchange for promising to protect its former Fisher Creek watershed through a conservation easement. Town board members voted almost a year ago to apply for a grant from the state’s Clean Water Management Trust Fund that in effect would purchase all development rights to the 1,088-acre watershed now known as Pinnacle Park.

“It’s great,” Sylva Mayor Brenda Oliver said of the CWMTF’s decision to fund the town’s request. “This conservation easement is something I’ve worked on for almost 10 years. I’m happy we could negotiate a ‘win-win’ for Sylva and the Clean Water Trust Fund.”

Town board members still have to formally approve a contract, which likely won’t arrive for several months, but they expressed their support for preserving the area when they voted to proceed with the application, Oliver said.

The $3.5 million is the largest grant Sylva has ever received, according to Oliver, and the money comes with very few strings attached. The only requirement is that 40 percent be spent on water-related projects, which could include stormwater management, water and sewer line extensions and greenways, she said.

Once the contract is signed and money is received, it will be up to town board members to decide how to best use it. Oliver said she hopes the board will hold a planning session to develop a policy for spending the money.

“One possibility is to put it in the bank and fund projects from the interest,” she said. There is no time limit by which that obligation must be met, she said.

Town Manager Jay Denton worked with Paul Carlson of the Land Trust for the Little Tennessee to prepare the grant application, said Oliver, who also expressed appreciation for the assistance of Region A’s Bill Gibson.

Carlson seemed as pleased as Oliver that the money has been allocated.

“I think this award gives the town an opportunity to be both good stewards of the land and of town assets,” said Carlson. “Not only will Sylva be able to generate revenue; the town will have the opportunity to access open, clean water.”

Tom Massie of Sylva, who is the CWMTF’s western field representative, described the grant as “probably one of the best deals around,” in that Sylva is deriving income from what he termed a “non-performing asset.”

“They’re being paid to continue that and protect the water quality,” he said.

According to Massie, by accepting the $3.5 million award, the town is agreeing to give up all timber rights and all development rights on the property, though it retains the right to use Fisher Creek as an emergency water supply.

The former watershed, located north of Sylva on the southern side of the Plott Balsams, was purchased by the town in 1912 as a drinking water source. The property includes the headwaters of Fisher Creek, which supplied Sylva with water until 1997, when the Tuckaseigee Water and Sewer Authority began drawing its supply from the Tuckaseigee River in Cullowhee.

The property is currently leased to the Pinnacle Park Foundation, which is headed by Sylva attorney Jay Coward.

Coward has long been an advocate of preserving the property in its present undeveloped state.

“I think it’s wonderful,” he said Tuesday. “It’s the culmination of a lot of work on a lot of people’s parts. Hats off to Tom Massie and Jay Denton for getting this grant together, and especially to Brenda Oliver and Bill Gibson, who have persevered all these years. I think it’s a benchmark for conservation in Jackson County.”

Town leaders last summer expressed an interest in retaining timber harvesting rights in addition to water rights, even though Carlson last fall told them that in his opinion the watershed is not suited for timber harvesting.

The CWMTF offers grants to municipalities to fund water protection and conservation projects or for conservation easements. To date, Bryson City, Canton and Brevard have received CWMTF funding to preserve their former watersheds, Massie said.

Town leaders in September 1998 rejected a conservation easement proposal that would protect the area permanently. A month later they refused an amended agreement that would have lasted only 99 years, but neither of those arrangements offered the town any money in return for development rights to the property. Town records indicate the former watershed was last logged in the late 1950s and early 1960s by Hennessee Lumber Co., which paid about $35,000 for the trees. At that time, only 600 of the total 1,088 acres was accessible by ground-logging equipment.