The Lake Norman CoveKEEPERS Covering Lake Norman and Mountain Island lakes

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SILT! A good example of poor planning.

"Water quality can be maintained only if perceptive planning, effective regulation,
and commitment of resources are implemented in a timely manner."
A quote from Duke Power's Lake Shore Management Plan.

As you look at the photos please keep in mind that the developer had people
on site earlier this day (1-24-02). I guess to fix some of the worst of the mess.

This silt fence and silt pond were cleaned out earlier today. It was obviously overwhelmed.
Just past the mud that is past the silt fence is a stream (the first of 3 streams).

This is 100' (or so) downstream of the above photo.
The bottom of the plastic that makes up the silt fence is not buried.

The end of the stream and the beginning of our cove.
Before this development there was no red mud here!

This is to the right of the photo above.
When Lake Norman is at full pond the stump of the tree that is leaning will be in the lake.

This is to the right of the photo above.
Most of the red mud past the silt fence will be in the lake when the lake is at full pond!

Again this is just to the right of the photo above.
The silt pond was a joke!

The next 2 photos are the view uphill of the silt pond in the photo above.
The first photo is to the right.

This photo is to the left of the silt pond.

In this photo, I walked out into the mud that is past the silt fence.
I was about 8' into the mud and it was about 4" deep. I backed up and took this photo.
I could only guess how deep the mud is in the middle.
This spot is in the middle of the 4th photo up from here and past the silt fence.

Just upstream (not the same stream as in the first photos) it gets WORSE!!!
More on this later.

After crossing the stream above (or river of mud as it was) this over-run set of silt fences is all
that protects a 3rd stream.

OK, back to the 2nd stream. This shot is in the middle of the photo 2 photos up.
It is the small group of trees in the middle of the photo.
In years past I walked this stream and it was beautiful.
The photo does not show it well but the entire stream bed is red mud!

This is just up stream of the photo above.

WOW! The photo is not very good but this is 10' upstream of the uppermost red mud in the photo above.

This also feeds into the group of trees and is just to the right of the photo 2 photos up but not part of the stream!
In the middle of the photo you can see a silt pond (BIG JOKE).
The water cut around the rocks and took lots of mud with it.
Also notice in the lower middle, the silt fence is GONE!

Just down stream of the photo above.
The 2nd stream is in the middle of the trees

Just to the right of the photo above.
Before the development, this was a very nice wooded stream.
Before it started to rain, there was a silt pond in the middle of this.
There's no sign of it now! It's buried under the mud.

A view from my dock of the red mud hill.
Also: the shoreline in the photos above are classified as "Environmental" in Duke Power's Shoreline Management Plan.

Update:

On 1-25-02 called NCDENR and Duke Power Lake Management to make sure they were aware of the problems.

1-30-02 work started on replacing silt fences, repair of silt ponds, hand removal of silt in the wetlands area (3rd and 5th photos from the top) and planting of grass on all cleared land.

Lake Norman CoveKEEPERS

This site is dedicated to the protection of Lake Norman and the Catawba river.

SILT! A good example of poor planning.

This site is dedicated to the protection of
Lake Norman and the Catawba river.