Summary of Accomplishments Toward Protecting Mountain Island Lake by MOU Partners
March 16, 2006
1. The jurisdictions around Mountain Island Lake last got together two (2) years ago during our
first symposium. Since then, we’ve accomplished a number of things that further our efforts
to protect this precious drinking water supply.
2. It was earlier agreed that future water quality protection efforts needed to be effectively
coordinated, and that specific methods for improved protection needed to be developed and
communicated to all jurisdictions within the watershed.
3. To achieve this, workshop attendees supported the establishment of a Work Group composed
of staff from the various jurisdictions as listed in this slide. The purpose of this Work Group
was to develop a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to be adopted by elected officials
and various stakeholder groups. The work group was established and met on several
occasions beginning in February 2004.
4. The result of their efforts was the completion of the Mountain Island Lake Memorandum of
Understanding. This MOU specifically describes how the coordination of water quality
protection measures around the lake will be accomplished. In the spring and summer of
2004, the MOU was presented to and subsequently signed by the jurisdictions around the
lake, as well as the Centralina Council of Governments and Mountain Island Lake Marine
Commission.
5. Following the signing of the MOU, the Work Group developed the Mountain Island Lake
Watershed Protection Guidelines. The purpose of these guidelines is to provide the
jurisdictions around the lake with watershed protection strategies for use at their discretion.
6. The handbook is available at the website shown in the slide, along with other important
MOU information. This website was developed by the Work Group and serves as a
mechanism to facilitate communication between Work Group members through the use of a
tool called a “blog.”
7. Finally, it was this Work Group that pulled together the Symposium we are having here
today. Their objective is to update the jurisdictions regarding continuing efforts to protect
Mountain Island Lake and to consider expanding these efforts to Lake Wylie. It is hoped that
Lake Wylie might benefit from the planning and coordination resulting from the partnership.
8. One of the tools that has been used for many years to protect water quality in Mountain
Island Lake is land conservation. In 1999, the City of Gastonia paid $9.3 million, along with
the Clean Water Management Trust Fund and the Trust for Public Lands contributing over $1
million, to help preserve 425 acres in the Mountain Island Watershed in Gaston County. The
area was named the Donald E. Carmichael Environmental Conservancy. Since the purchase
of this land, the City of Gastonia has partnered with Mount Holly to plan the development of
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unpaved bicycle and pedestrian trails on this land. In 2005, the City partnered with the N.C.
Division of Forest Resources to manage the land as an Educational Forest.
9. Also in 2005, Gastonia’s Long Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant won the State’s
Environmental Stewardship Award for its efforts in the area of environmental protection.
10. This slide illustrates the location of the land purchased by the City of Gastonia shown in
“Green.” Also in the late 1990s, 1,233 deeded acres in Gaston and Lincoln Counties was
purchased from Crescent Resources through the cooperative efforts of the Centralina Council
of Governments, the N.C. Clean Water Management Trust Fund, Trust for Public Land and
the Catawba Lands Conservancy. The acreage is on the western bank of Mountain Island
Lake as shown here in green. The parcels are deeded to Gaston and Lincoln Counties. This
tract was combined with the 425 acre tract owned by Gastonia to form the Mountain Island
Lake Educational Forest.
11. The Mountain Island Lake Educational Forest is one (1) of seven (7) such forests across N.C.
managed by the Division of Forest Resources. The first Educational State Forest was begun
in 1977 in Johnston County, which is located between the Piedmont and the Coastal Plain.
There are also three (3) forests in the Blue Ridge Mountains, one (1) at Jordan Lake near
Raleigh and another in Bladen County out east.
12. The purpose of the Educational State Forests is to develop, protect and manage North
Carolina’s forests through stewardship, enhancing the quality of life for our citizens, while
ensuring the continuity of these vital resources. The Educational State Forests offer an array
of programs that help visitors understand that North Carolina’s forests are complex,
interdependent ecosystems, which can be managed for a diversity of uses on a sustainable
basis.
13. The northern portion of the Mountain Island Lake Educational State Forest is shown in this
picture. The forest is operating as a working forest as we speak. The focus of the Division
of Forest Resources is on protecting water quality, which is the reason the land was originally
purchased.
14. Activities currently underway in the Educational Forest include maintaining fireline falls as
shown in this picture. There are also some minor timber harvesting activities currently
underway as a component of managing the forest.
15. Currently, there is not a timeline for opening the forest to the public. State funds have not
been made available for the needed capital improvements. However, as soon as legislation is
passed to provide the needed funding, efforts will begin in “big leaps” to open the forest to
the public.
16. Once open, the Mountain Island Lake Educational State Forest will include a variety of
outdoor educational opportunities including workshops, ranger conducted classes and
numerous trails with features such as talking rocks and trees. The facility will also most
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likely include picnic facilities and a variety of opportunities for the public to interact with
nature in a learning atmosphere.
17. In 2005, the City of Mount Holly added to the conservation lands around Mountain Island
Lake. Mount Holly worked with the Catawba Lands Conservancy to obtain a $2.6 million
dollar grant from the Clean Water Management Trust Fund to purchase 216 acres of land.
The land includes 184 acres on Upper Lake Wylie and 32 acres on Mountain Island Lake
adjacent to the Mount Holly and Gastonia drinking water intakes.
18. Permanently protecting this property will help filter sediment and nutrients before they reach
these drinking water intakes, which withdraw between 12 and 26 million gallons of water a
day to serve close to 100,000 citizens.
19. Gaston County has also recently made great strides in protecting Mountain Island Lake
through the establishment of their local erosion and sedimentation control program. Over the
past three (3) years, the program has permitted 5,622 acres of development in 328 projects,
conducted 2,314 inspections and issued of 85 notices of violation. In 2005, Gaston County’s
Program won the State’s Local Program Award for their outstanding work.
20. On the east bank of Mountain Island Lake in Mecklenburg County there are significant
challenges in the protection of water quality. The most polluted waters in Mountain Island
Lake are found in McDowell Creek Cove shown here. The primary source of this pollution
is development activity upstream of the cove located predominantly within the Town of
Huntersville. Exit 25 off I-77 is located in the heart of this watershed and is an area that has
experienced tremendous growth in the past several years.
21. One of the primary pollutants is sediment. Here the sediment is shown here moving down
the creek and into McDowell Creek Cove. Water quality monitoring and modeling
performed by Mecklenburg County has demonstrated that as growth continues, the quantity
of pollutants discharged will increase 10 fold resulting in significant water quality
degradation. The cove’s location upstream of Charlotte-Mecklenburg’s drinking water
intake on Mountain Island Lake makes this a particularly troubling prospect.
22. In response to this concern, the Huntersville Town Board adopted an ordinance in 2003 that
requires new developments to reduce non-point source storm water pollutants through the use
of Low Impact Development (LID) techniques.
23. LID is an ecologically friendly approach to land development that controls non-point source
pollutants through careful site planning focused on limiting clear cutting and mass grading. It
preserves trees, disperses storm water flow and maintains natural drainage patterns. After
three (3) years of implementation numerous LID measures, the ordinance seems to be
working very well at preventing increased degradation of water quality conditions from
development activities.
24. Rain gardens as shown in these slides are a common LID techniques in Huntersville. Rain
gardens look like landscaped natural areas, but they are actually excavated areas filled with
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between two (2) to four (4) feet of conditioned soil and covered with plants and mulch.
Water flows into the rain garden and pollutants are taken up by the plants and filtered
through the sand before entering an underdrain that flows to the storm water collection
system. The end result is cleaner storm runoff and far less pollution in our surface waters.
25. Although the Huntersville Ordinance does an effective job of preventing pollution problems
from getting worse, it doesn’t reduce the existing pollutant load. In 2005, Mecklenburg
County developed a Watershed Management Plan for the McDowell Creek watershed that
targets specific areas to reduce existing pollutant loads and restore water quality. Several
components of the Plan are currently underway, including a $4.5 million project to install
pollution control measures at nine (9) previously developed commercial properties and to
restore a one (1) mile stretch of McDowell Creek.
26. One such property is the 50 acre Northcross Shopping Center in Huntersville where five (5)
areas have been targeted for rain garden installation as shown in this slide.
27. Over 40 rain gardens will be retrofitted into the existing parking lot as shown in this
simulation. These rain gardens will significantly reduce the pollutants entering McDowell
Creek and flowing to Mountain island Lake.
28. The stream restoration project will repair eroded channels and improve aquatic habitat. This
project is funded in part by grants from the N.C. Clean Water Management Trust Fund, EPA
319 Program and N.C. Ecosystem Enhancement Program.
29. The Town of Cornelius is also involved in an effort to restore water quality conditions in the
headwaters of McDowell Creek draining from their jurisdiction. The Town purchased 10
acres along Caldwell Station Creek, where the State will construct a stream and wetland
restoration project beginning this summer. Cornelius has future plans to develop the site into
an educational ECO Park.
30. In 2005, the Town of Cornelius secured a grant from NCDOT to assist in the construction of
a greenway/bikeway along a segment of McDowell Creek. Mecklenburg County will be
working with Cornelius to restore the stream along the greenway.
31. In 2005, Cornelius partnered with a private developer in planning a public park and private
residential development along McDowell Creek, which will result in less runoff and greater
protection for water quality. The project demonstrates how public/private partnerships can
be very beneficial to water quality.
32. Over the past few years, the City of Charlotte through Charlotte Mecklenburg Utilities has
made several land purchases on Mountain Island Lake for the protection of their drinking
water intake illustrated by the red circle. The yellow shading illustrating the land owned by
Charlotte Mecklenburg Utilities around the intake. In December 2004, the City of Charlotte
purchased an additional 14 acres as shown, bringing the total acreage around the intake to
108.
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33. In September 2005, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Utilities purchased 194 acres on Jim Kidd Road
in Mecklenburg County near the McDowell Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant. This land
will also serve to protect water quality conditions in McDowell Creek.
34. Mountain Island Lake provides almost 85% of the 80 million gallons of water used per day in
Charlotte Mecklenburg to over 700,000 residents. In order to extend the usefulness of
Mountain Island Lake and to ensure water use efficiency, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Utilities’
water conservation program initiated a residential consumption reduction plan designed to
reduce water waste. Since its inception in 2003, the program has realized an 8% reduction in
residential monthly average usage.
35. In addition, a state of the art water environment education center called the Blue Planet has
been constructed by Charlotte-Mecklenburg Utilities to raise the awareness of all citizens of
the need to protect our water resources. The facility is located at the Dukes Water Treatment
Plant in northern Mecklenburg County. Since opening its doors, thousands of area school
children have toured the facility and taken the WaterSmart pledge to use “water wisely.”
36. The Centralina Council of Governments (COG) has also made significant contributions to the
protection of Mountain Island Lake over the past two (2) years. The COG is currently developing
a training course on Low Impact Development targeted at the real estate industry and others in the
building profession.
37. The COG’s Sustainable Environment for Quality of Life (SEQL) program has been helping
participants throughout the Mountain Island Lake watershed enact practical, cross-disciplinary
measures designed to improve environmental and economic conditions for both rural and urban
settings. The program directly addresses water-related concerns.
38. One of the other diligent stewards of Mountain Island Lake is the Marine Commission established
in 1997 through a Joint Resolution of Gaston, Lincoln, and Mecklenburg Counties consistent with
enabling legislation approved by the State. The Commission strives to preserve and protect
Mountain Island Lake in the best interest of all the citizens and property owners in all 3 counties.
39. Thank you for your time and attention and thank you to all the jurisdictions around the lake
for your hard work in protecting this valuable natural resource.
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