Clif Bar Grant Update

By Trey Coleman

December - 2004

In the summer of 2004 Chota was awarded a $500 grant from Clif Bar and American Whitewater. We competed against 30 other clubs across the nation and our club, along with another club in Iowa, was selected to receive a grant.

Our application called for research to be done into the water quality problems facing Crooked Fork Creek, which is up near Wartburg. In order to do this, Chota has been working with the Emory River Watershed Association (ERWA) and the Tennessee Clean Water Network (TCWN). The goal of this grant is to raise awareness of the problems facing this watershed by writing an article and having stickers printed that say “SAVE CROOKED FORK CREEK.” The article will be put on our website (and hopefully other clubs too) as ready-made content that tells the story of Crooked Fork as it’s a story worth telling.

So, what’s going on with all this? Well the article is mostly written, borrowing heavily from the ERWA’s grant application to the EPA to do a watershed management plan, and our involvement with this project has increased. Jomo MacDermott and I met with Del Scruggs (the driving force behind ERWA) and they would like our club to participate in a stream assessment of Crooked Fork, which basically will catalog the entire waterway, mile by mile. This is one of the components of ERWA’s $30,000 grant they received from the EPA. It’s a really cool opportunity for the club and its members to get out and do something pro-conservation and boating related combined. I am also in the process of getting the stickers and it is my hope to have them included in either the 12/31 newsletter mailing or the 3/31 mailing at the latest.

Why Crooked Fork Creek? The watershed for Crooked Fork drains off of the Frozen Head State Park and Natural Area and the towns of Petros and Wartburg. In this watershed is the infamous Brushy Mountain Prison as well. Crooked Fork is a whitewater run that has a range of rapids from II – V, with different sections accordingly, and comes up usually when the Emory/Obed system is boatable. Unfortunately rain events also pull in contaminants from the small communities and farms located in the watershed. Straight-piping of sewage from individual’s homes into the creek is common and cows drink and graze by the creek (I’ll let your imagination fill that one in). However, this run is regularly boated by Emory/Obed fans and obviously heavy rain events offer up some dilution factor.

Del Scruggs lives in the area and is a real driving force in getting the residents to be aware about what can be done to minimize contamination of the creek and the watershed as a whole. Del is a really cool guy and is approaching this problem in a very non-judgmental manner and slowly winning the minds of the locals. Like most folks, the people of Petros and Wartburg are proud of their community and want to do what’s right. Del’s goal is to put the word out about how little things can be done by those living next to the creek that can really make a difference.

So in many ways our work with this grant is coming to an end, but in many ways it is also just getting started by helping out ERWA and the communities comprising the Crooked Fork watershed. If you want more information on this or get involved, please check out the Chota website as we have an entire page dedicated to this grant.