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Sylva celebrates Pinnacle Park conservation easement
By Stephanie Salmons

Sylva leaders and those who helped the town secure a $3.5 million dollar grant from the N.C. Clean Water Management Trust Fund gathered Tuesday (Dec. 4) for a celebration of the conservation easement that will permanently protect 1,088-acre Pinnacle Park.

The park, which comprises the town’s former watershed, was one of the largest unprotected properties remaining in the Plott Balsams; Sylva officials last month finalized a contract that will preserve the property in its natural state.

The town acquired the Fisher Creek watershed in 1912, and it served as the town’s source of drinking water until 1992, when the Tuckaseigee Water and Sewer Authority was formed. TWSA continued to use Fisher Creek to supply its customers until the authority’s Cullowhee water treatment plant was completed in 1997. Sylva leaders leased the town’s former watershed to the Pinnacle Park Foundation, which is headed by local attorney Jay Coward, in 1995.

Officials gathered Tuesday (Dec. 4) to celebrate the conservation easement that permanently protects Sylva’s 1,088-acre Fisher Creek watershed from development. In return for agreeing to preserve the tract, now known as Pinnacle Park, the town received a $3.5 million grant from the N.C. Clean Water Management Trust Fund. A popular destination for hikers and other outdoor enthusiasts, the park includes the headwaters of Fisher Creek (bottom photo) and offers panoramic views of the Scotts Creek valley from the Pinnacle, a rock outcropping that juts out from Pinnacle Bald (photo below). Tuesday’s participants (above) included, from left, county Commissioner Tom Massie, NCCWMTF western field representative; Paul Carlson, director of the Land Trust for the Little Tennessee; Jay Coward, president of Pinnacle Park Foundation; Sylva Mayor Brenda Oliver, Sylva town Manager Jay Denton; N.C. Rep. Phil Haire; NCCWMTF Director Richard Rogers; and N.C. Sen. John Snow. – Herald photos by Nick Breedlove

Coward announced during Tuesday’s event that the foundation voted unanimously to terminate its lease with the town that morning.
Coward said one of the major purposes of the Pinnacle Park Foundation was to protect the park from development, and the new conservation easement does that.
“I’m so thankful people like (Mayor) Brenda Oliver and (former town board member) Marion Jones had the foresight to enter into this lease,” Coward said.
Sylva leaders were pleased as well.
“I hope for future generations that it really does last forever,” town board member Harold Hensley said.
Board member Ray Lewis agreed. “I’m glad I was a part of it. I hope it lasts forever.”