20030179 Ver 6_Public Comments_20071026 (5)

NCDWQ401 Permit
Subject: NCDWQ401 Permit
From: "TJ Walker" <[e-mail]>
Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2007 16:59:46 -0400
To: "John Dorney" <[e-mail]>
Mr. Steve Tedder
c/o Mr. John Dorney
North Carolina Division of Water Quality
401/ Wetlands Division
Parkview Building
2321 Crabtree Blvd.
Raleigh N. C. 27604
Mr. Tetter I would appreciate you reviewing my previous comments forwarded to the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission scoping and EA process and Documents on this matter during the relicensing
process of the Nantahala and Tuckasegee Hydroelectric facilities, projects and related reservoirs' in the
mountainous region of Western North Carolina, within the boundaries of Jackson, Macon and Swain
Counties and the Cherokee Indian Reservation Boundary. This in relation to the settlement agreements,
including Jackson County's proposed Alternative Settlement Agreement , which I think you should
review, evaluate and compare, and the environmentally destructive and unmerited measure to remove
the Dillsboro Dam which is the centerpiece of the Duke Energy sponsored and procured contractual
arrangement known as the Nantahala Settlement Agreement. With respect to a more complete and
thorough historical record of this region please refer to recognized historical publications produced by
local authors and local historical associations and we invite you to come take more statements and
affadavits of the type I sent you yesterday for these proceeding. There are more eye witnesses to the
history of events that took place in Dillsboro still active and involved in our community. We would
welcome such a visit.
I, Thomas J Walker and the Interveners in this matter respectfully request that your agency do not
exclusively refer to the incomplete assessments and opinions used in the Dam Removal Narrative
forwarded to you by Duke Energy LLC. on this matter and in their development of the related Nantahala
Settlement Agreement, in review by your NCDWQ office. Many locals believe that the Nantahala
Settlement Agreement represents a flawed process with preduce and incomplete science. That it derived
from a suspect and compromised negociation explained here in. Please bare with me as I am not trained
in law, extensive logic and communication skills to appropriatly express in short,the long, drawn out and
detailed series of meetings, events and negociations that we have gone through in this matter.
The Dillsboro Dam removal proposal contained in the Nantahala Settlement Agreement, evolved from
the collaborated efforts of a Stakeholder process that was lead by Duke Energy LLC(Then Duke Power
Corp.) and Federal and State of North Carolina Resource agencies, including your own NCDWQ, North
Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, North Carolina Division of Water Resources-DNER and the
US Fish & Wildlife Service. Members from these agencies participated and sat on the executive board
that set the goals, by laws and even established mitigation values in that Nantahala Stakeholder process
that lead to that NS Agreement. The Dillsboro Dam removal Narrative forwarded to the State of North
Carolina and your office suffers from of lack of available and pertinent historical and environmental
evidence and knowledge. That the same Duke Energy Corporation was tactfully excluding this
historical information about dredging activity and resulting reservior depths and impacts(sediment
Quantity), from the NSA groups(which I was a part of and witnessed) and misrepresenting the 401
historic eligibility of the Dillsboro Power House from the NSA groups while at the same time, being fully
aware of this 401 historical status of The Dillsboro Power House. So at the same time as the
Stakeholder Group Process was ongoing, Duke Energy was corresponding to and with the appropriate
North Carolina Historical Preservation Board and National Historical Preservation Offices about that
historic 401 designation and preparing for those requirements for mitigation in removing the
Dillsboro Power House of the Dillsboro Dam from same, and ommitting important historical industrial
activity such as 40 years of dredging, to the Stakeholder groups. In the process of and the same time
during, Duke Energy was deceiving the Nantahala and Tuchasegee Stakeholder Groups by working
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NCDWQ401 Permit
toward the applied mitigation requirements in preparation to remove the Dillsboro Dam and Powerhouse
from 401 elegibility requirements, to secure the Nantahala Settlement Agreement and procure the
historic documentation that they eventually fulfilled with those same requirements for mitigation in the
process of obtaining the 401 waiver. So the Nantahala Stakeholder groups were told at that same time
Duke was communicating and procuring with State and Federal historic agencies during the stakeholder
process, that History was not important in Dillsboro. That the Dillsboro Power House was not 401
eligible(when it was), and that no environmental impacts worth looking into occurred at and in the
Dillsboro Reservoir relating to the comprehensive review and planning and staudy they claimed was
taking place. Impact studies were promised and never delivered by Duke Power Inc. during the course of
that Stakeholder Process.
Duke Energy LLC. Then known as Duke Power Corporation is new to the area of Western North
Carolina, having just purchased these Nantahala and Tuchasegee projects from Nantahala Power
and Light Corporation only a few years before, in 2001. Duke Energy is a North Carolina Corporation that
obviously is not concerned with relevant and factual history(except when to remove same), and is
obviously not familiar or concerned with environmental and social history in the mountains, Dillsboro,
Jackson County, or just plane chooses to ignore history. The Dillsboro Dam is the first Hydro electric
facility built in the mountains and the subsequent evolution and distribution of hydro electric power in
Jackson. County is significant to all matters of concern. The resulting spread of commerce in Dillsboro
and Sylva due to the availability of electric power coming to this region, due to the damming of the
Tuchasegee river that runs through Sylva and Dillsboro and the history of industrial activity here in
Dillsboro and on the reservoir in Jackson County, from when the Dillsboro Dam was first built, in 1913, is
a pertinent part of any environmental impact study. Duke Energy Corp. and the State of North Carolina
and Federal Resource Agencies mentioned above, failed to review, take into account and comment
on, any of these important economic, historic and industrial activities. And more importantly the resulting
environmental impacts of these activities and the relationships and negative impacts that might result
with Dam Removal because of them. Therefore the science applied to this concern is flawed at best
and measured inaccurately. That this was done intentionally by the licensee and not taken into
consideration by the resource agencies is highly inappropriate and possibly illegal.
The fact is, that in the Duke Energy Project History of the Nantahala Stakeholder Agreement and the
Dam Removal Narrative that you are reviewing, there are too many 'sin's of omission ' to issue a North
Carolina 401 Water Quality Permit. That because of these omissions we ask you please take the
comments and recommendations of our expert team of environmental scientists and consultants
seriously. And because we have no historical account save for the affidavits we have forwarded to
you(and we could get a lot more), we recommend further research and scientific testing along Diilsboro
Reservoir. Scientific Data and Material about the impacts of dredging activity, both sand pumps and/or
drag line mining taking place in the reservoir at Dillsboro, activity that we know took place for over 4
decades; and indiscriminante Dumping activity of both solid and possible toxic waste, known to have
taken place is warrented. We respectfully ask does this give reason for further testing and scrutiny of the
mile long impoundment and shorelines of the reservoir at Dillsboro.
Allow me please to mention that the primary reason that the Dillsboro Dam and early generation Hydro
Electric Power House was built in 1913 by local hero C. J. Harris, was to provide electric power to the
then primitive(by modern medical standards) Sylva General Hospital that was located in this
neighborhood between the 2 towns of Dillsboro and Sylva North Carolina. Please build a greater profile
of the Dillsboro neighborhood, Dam, Power House and Reservoir. We look forward to working with you
and please come stay at the Dillsboro Inn and we will show you around. I Thank You.
Thomas Joseph Walker ' TJ '
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