Background
Local interest in protecting the high quality natural resources in the Rocky River watershed of the Cape Fear Basin is high. Various groups who are actively working on water quality protection and improvement include the Rocky River Heritage Foundation, a group that is in partnership with the Triangle Land Conservancy called Chatham Conservation Partners, Chatham County Cooperative Extension Center, the Chatham Soil and Water Conservation District, and Chatham County government itself.
The County contacted WECO and NRLI in late 2007 to facilitate an appointed stakeholder group to discuss how to move forward with protection of the Rocky River Subbasin. With feedback from the group and additional agricultural stakeholders, partners obtained an EPA 319 proposal, which was granted and began in December 2008. The project goals include:
- improve coordination & collaboration between all effected stakeholders in the Rocky River
- leverage resources more effectively
- use the NC Ecosystem Enhancement Program 2005 report as a foundation to identify and prioritizing projects
- build on local SWCD and NRCS efforts to restore the impaired Tick Creek watershed
- conduct an aquatic taxa inventory
- develop a geodatabase for storing and analyzing data
- evaluate land use/land cover of Tick Creek watershed to better characterize its important biological community, reasons for impairment, and most effective strategies for improvement.
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direct link to this page: www.ncsu.edu/WECO/rocky
Links to some of the organizations working to enhance natural resources and community development in the Rocky River watershed:
