JANUARY 9, 2024 NEWSLETTER

To the Residents of Etowah,

Happy New Year!  We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and look forward to what 2024 will bring to our community.  Here are a few updates we wanted to share in our first newsletter of 2024.  

The Etowah Valley Preservation Society

Lawsuit to Preserve the Etowah Golf Course

As we noted in December, we filed a Notice of Appeal with the North Carolina Court of Appeals.  We have retained Parker Poe of Raleigh to represent us.  This firm has extensive appeals experience and represented one of the litigants in the Crooked Creek of Hendersonville golf course dispute.  We look forward to working with this new firm, if you are interested in supporting this appeal, please donate online using this link or send a check to The Etowah Valley Preservation Society, PO Box 1746, Etowah NC 28729.

Waste Water Treatment Plant (WWTP)

The public hearing before the Utilities Commission on the Cummings Cove WWTP sale has been postponed until February.

One of our principal concerns with a housing development on the South Golf Course is a new WWTP.  There are several concerns about this proposal, and while they may function well in the early years of their operational life, the current Etowah WWTP demonstrates they don’t always perform that way. 

Any new proposed WWTP must go through an approval process and we must understand this process.  Henderson County has applied for a new NPDES wastewater permit (NC0090247) for the Clear Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant, located near Fruitland Road, Hendersonville, NC, Henderson County. The facility will discharge treated municipal wastewater to Clear Creek in the French Broad River Basin (Class C). This discharge may affect future allocations in this portion of the French Broad River Basin. 

A PUBLIC NOTICE has been issued that the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Water Resources will hold a public hearing from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on February 5, 2024, in the Auditorium at the North Henderson High School. The purpose of the hearing is to allow the public to comment on the draft NPDES permit.   We urge interested Etowah residents to attend this hearing. 

The draft wastewater permit and related documents are available online at: https://deq.nc.gov/public-notices-hearings for the Clear Creek WWTP. Printed copies of the draft permit and related documents may be reviewed at the department’s Asheville Regional Office (2090 U.S. 70 Highway, Swannanoa, NC 28778-8211). To make an appointment to review the documents, please call 828-296-4500, and ask for a Water Quality Regional Operations Supervisor. File materials may not be removed from any DWR office; copy machines are available for use upon payment of the cost thereof to DWR pursuant to G.S. 132-6.2.

Public comments on the draft permit may be mailed to: Wastewater Permitting, Attn: Henderson County-Clear Creek WWTP Permit, 1617 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, N.C., 27699-1617, and must be postmarked no later than February 6, 2024.  Public comments may also be submitted by email to: publiccomments@ncdenr.gov. Please include “Clear Creek WWTP” in the email subject line. Comments will be accepted via email until February 6, 2024, 5 p.m.

Etowah Town Meeting

The Etowah Lions will be hosting a “Meet the Candidates for Henderson County Commissioners” on January 23rd, at 6:30 at their Lions Club Den on Etowah School Road in front of Etowah Park.   Please see this flyer for additional information.

Incorporation

Several individuals have expressed an interest in working on plans to incorporate Etowah.  If additional community members are interested in this undertaking, it is not to late to let us know.