POPLAR — The Mitchell County Board of Commissioners held a contentious special meeting at the Poplar Community Building on Tuesday, Aug. 25.
The purpose of the meeting was for commissioners to get community input on possibly designating a seven-mile portion of the Nolichucky River as a component of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System.
If designated, the portion of the river, which is already Forest Service protected land, would be further protected and kept free flowing, as it is now. Under the current protections, the federal government could still alter the river with actions like damming or diverting.
Before the meeting, Board of Commissioners Chairman Jacob Willis remarked he hoped people would show up.
Show up, they did.
An estimated 100 people attended the meeting to listen and express their thoughts on the matter. Commissioners Matthew “Vern” Grindstaff and Danny Burleson were not present, however.
Native Mitchell County resident Halley Burleson, who has been spearheading the movement to designate the river, handed out fliers and spoke briefly at the start of the meeting about her background and how she got into promoting this designation.
“When I heard about the Wild and Scenic designation through the paddling community, I was a little bit hesitant,” Burleson said. “Because I was born and raised in Mitchell County on a farm, I worked at Unimin Corporation in research and development for four years and I am an advocate for farming and mining. So, my little radars went up when I heard about Wild and Scenic.”
Burleson added in-depth research into the topic led her to believe a Wild and Scenic designation would only be positive for the community.
“I spent two years doing research on the Wild and Scenic designation and what it would mean for our community and there’s nothing I can see, from my research, that would suggest it would be a detriment to our area or our streams or our rivers at all,” Burleson said. “I only see a benefit.”
Burleson expressed her desire to inform the community about what the designation would do and not do through Kevin Colburn, the American Whitewater National Stewardship Director, who she deemed “an expert” on Wild and Scenic rivers.
However, many people in attendance seemed to have already made up their minds on the topic.
Nearly every time a person spoke in support of the river designation, someone in the crowd chimed in, out of turn, with a comment.
Willis tried to tame some of the disruptions, but his attempts did little to quell them completely.
At one point, a woman yelled an expletive and suggested Burleson would be making money from the river being designated. Another woman echoed this sentiment near the end of the meeting and asked Burleson if she was a co-owner of a local rafting company.
Local resident Allen McMurray, who has been vocal about his disapproval for the designation in the past, also addressed Burleson’s employment with a nonprofit based in Asheville and implied Burleson was being supported financially for her advocacy.
Burleson tried to dispel the claims by explaining she does not have any investment in any recreational company and her employment includes working part-time for a nonprofit, Wild South, and running her own photography business.
In a 15-minute address, McMurray also said the river was already protected by the United States Forest Service, so there is no need to protect it further.
“I’m against it,” McMurray said. “The Forest Service already controls everything that goes on down there and I don’t think we need any more control. The more control we get out of Washington, how much help is that?”
McMurray received applause for his comment and said he believed they should not move forward with the designation because he thinks it would incite government control over private property and restrictions to farming and mining.
Additionally, a handful of local residents, a former commissioner from Unicoi County and Colburn spoke about their views on a possible designation.
At 6:55 p.m., five minutes before the meeting was supposed to adjourn and with many people with hands raised to speak, Willis ended the meeting.
Burleson initially appeared a bit defeated, but even though the official meeting had ended, many people stayed at the community building afterward and spoke with her and commissioners one-on-one.
In the more personal setting, Burleson spoke with residents and addressed some of their concerns about what the designation would actually mean.
No decisions have been made regarding the designation of the stretch of the Nolichucky, but some Poplar residents expressed their desire to have another meeting without commissioners to discuss the topic further.
The commissioners agreed to have the community meeting in Poplar on Aug. 3, after hearing from Burleson at their regular session on July 16.
The topic of a wild and scenic designation for the stretch of the Nolichucky has been on commissioners plates since early January, though.
According to the official minutes from the Mitchell County Government website, in their regular session on Jan. 6, Burleson spoke to Commissioners about what a wild and scenic designation would mean for Mitchell County and asked them to provide a letter of support to help move the designation forward.
Commissioner Burleson made a motion to approve the letter of support and the motion carried unanimously.
However, at the commissioners regular session on Feb. 3, McMurray spoke to commissioners during public comment about the letter of support they had approved in January.
According to the official minutes from the February meeting, McMurray said he was representing citizens who could potentially be affected by the designation and requested the letter of support be withdrawn.
Some of the concerns McMurray expressed included an eminent domain and the possibility of the Department of Agriculture banning mining, the use of fertilizers, spray materials and pasture runoff. He also suggested the river designation could be extended to affect private property, citing 21 additions to wild and scenic rivers in 2019.
Commissioner Burleson, who had previously made a motion to provide a letter of support, made a motion to hold off on supporting the designation and the motion carried unanimously.
Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the topic of the river designation had faded to the background, but at the board’s regular session on July 16, Burleson spoke to the board again about the river designation and addressed some of McMurray’s claims from February, particularly about additions to designations.
“The process for designating a wild and scenic river is the same as designating any additional section of that river,” Burleson said. “It requires an entirely new and separate significant political process with many opportunities for input that require overwhelming support. It literally takes an act of congress to designate any stretch of river as a wild and scenic river, even an addition.”
During this meeting, Burleson also noted that no private property would be affected and that both major mining companies in the county, Sibelco and the Quartz Corp, had informed Burleson they would take a neutral stance on the matter.
According to the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System, there are two ways to designate a river.
The first, as Burleson mentioned, is through an act of congress. The other method allows the Secretary of the Interior to designate a river if a state governor requests designation, but it is rare for designations to be determined this way and many requirements must be met to do so.