Swannanoa River restoration project set to begin

Work will impact disc golf course at Veterans Park

Fred McCormick
The Valley Echo
May 14, 2021

The eroded bank along the Swannanoa River in Veterans Park will be stabilized as work begins, May 17, on a project that will restore and enhanced approximately 1,700 feet of the waterway on the north side of the park. Photo by Fred McCormick

A project that will restore roughly 1,700 linear feet of the segment of the Swannanoa River that winds through the north side of Veterans Park is set to get underway, Monday, May 17. 

The work, which will focus on stabilizing the eroded banks and improving the stream bed, is scheduled to continue through mid-August.

The Town of Black Mountain received a $74,000 grant from the N.C. Department of Water Resources in September of 2020 to assist in funding the project. The grant was one of three that will fund the vast majority of the $156,000 restoration, which will improve the water quality in the seven-mile stretch of river that has been on the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality’s 303(d) impaired waters list since 2006.

Once complete, the project will significantly enhance the segment of the Swannanoa River and improve conditions downstream. 

“The whole point of this work is to not only maintain town property and a healthier floodway, but it will also really improve the water quality,” said planning director Jessica Trotman. “We’re taking sediment load out of the river, and the Swannanoa River is considered impaired, largely due to sediment and stormwater runoff.”

Mobilization for the project will begin Monday, according to Trotman, and equipment will access the river from the Montreat College property across from the town park. The front 9 of the disc golf course will be closed while crews work in and around the river this summer, and the area will be taped off. The rest of Veterans Park, including the back 9 of the course, the baseball fields, playground and community garden will remain open.

Bank stabilization will focus on areas of the river that have experienced substantial erosion in recent years, utilizing a soft approach of geolifts and existing cobble. 

“Instead of just hardening the bank with boulders, it will create a more natural bank,” Trotman said. “It becomes enriched and stabilized, and it’s a softer way of deflecting the water, so when it hits the bank it doesn’t deflect it right back out into the channel.”

The method is an environmentally friendly way to address the erosion issues in the river, according to the planning director, and will invite habitat for native plants and animals. 

“It’s going to look pretty different through here,” said Trotman, motioning to an eroded section of the bank. 

Black Mountain Planning Director Jessica Trotman points to an area of the Swannanoa River where a large cobble deposit has accelerated the erosion of the bank. A project intended to stabilize the banks and restore the stream bed to its natural flow will begin next week. Photo by Fred McCormick

Fallen and unstable trees in and around the streambed will be removed, and the restructuring of a large deposit of earth and stones that began forming after a pair of severe storms flooded the river in 2018 is intended to reduce channeling that accelerates erosion. 

Shallow areas of fast-moving water, known as riffles, will be built in sections of the bed. The landforms serve as a habitat for benthic macroinvertebrates, a central component of the waterway’s ecosystem. 

The presence of macroinvertebrates, including insect larvae and nymphs, crawfish, worms and snails, are an indicator of a waterway’s health. The Swannanoa River’s classification as an impaired waterway is due to a decline in their population, attributed to an increase in sediment from stormwater runoff and erosion.