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Friends of Wears Valley Press ReleaseSubmitted by afriqueart on Sat, 2008/01/26 - 8:44am.
FRIENDS OF WEARS VALLEY P.O. Box 1625 Friends of Wears Valley receives Grant from the Cave Conservancy Foundation Wears Valley, TN. January 25, 2008 The Friends of Wears Valley (FOWV) is the recipient of a grant from the Cave Conservancy Foundation of Richmond, Virginia. The grant will fund an initiative led by the FOWV to increase public awareness and address water quality issues related to recent growth and development adjacent to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The major focus of the project is the protection and restoration of sensitive landscapes, community drinking water supplies, and Cove Creek, which is already on the state 303(D) impaired waters list. The new project will facilitate a grassroots approach to hazard assessment and planning through education, monitoring, and partnerships. Activities are intended to support the emerging countywide discussion about sustainable development, environmental quality and aesthetic values. During 2008 and 2009, FOWV hopes to co-sponsor several workshops for teachers, local officials, developers, realtors and concerned citizens about groundwater, surface water and resource protection. The major objective is to establish an ongoing water quality monitoring program involving local grade school students. Both phases of the project will begin this spring with a preliminary investigation of hydrology and land use in Wears Valley. The FOWV is a non-profit organization formed to promote the long-term protection of natural resources and cultural heritage in the area. FOWV supports the concept of better growth management as a means of sustaining a balance between tourism and nature, and seeks to forge strong partnerships in this effort. The Friends of Wears Valley can be reached at: 865-300-8055, Link... or P.O. Box 1625 ( categories: )
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Perhaps this will be a good start to address the out-of-control development that is impacting Wears Valley and much of our area. The Sevier County commission has never seen a developer that it didn't like (and treated very well.)The citizens' requests are rountinely rejected at commission meetings and we have very little representation or voice in community decion making. A developer sits as head of the Board of Zoning Appeals and almost every developers'rezoning request is rubber stamped. Cove Creek is not unlike 35 other creeks and waterways in Sevier County that have been negativly impacted by lax rules and enforcement of development and stormwater regulations. A recent study by UT concerning stormwater enforcement in Sevier County was damning but nobody in the County even blinked at the news. Our local officials feel like they are immune from following any state or federal regulations and some have even stated that publicly. When concerned citizens (like the FOWV) get involved, several things happen. The volunteers start generating hard water quality data for the public to review and as they educate themselves about the problem they also tend to educate the public about the negative impacts of improper development on our waterways. The high costs of this out-of-control development policy will eventually be borne by the citizens of the county. We are simply allowing the interest to accru while our public officials continue to delay in forming any type of hillside and mountain top protection(s). One day when taxpayers start getting the enormous bill(s) for all the consequences of this development they will think back on the several decades of rule by the county mayor, Larry Waters and regret that we collectively didn't do more sooner to reign in all this mountain top destruction. FOWV may be a little late in starting, I don't know if anything can slow this juggernaut down now, except a recession, but they are to be commended for thier efforts. It's just too bad that they don't have the backing of more of our commissioners. Now THAT would make for a better community much faster. Best of luck to them.
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