Macon County Floodplain Report

WATR and Partners Step Up to Prevent Bad Floodplain Ordinance

Macon County Commissioners have proposed a Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance that is allow unacceptable damage, risk and development in the floodplain of the Little Tennessee River watershed. A group of experienced scientists, hydrologists, and conservationists teamed up to assess the ordinance and quickly create a critical set of comprehensive changes to the County’s proposed Ordinance.

From our Executive Director, Katie Price:

‘WATR has been helping our Macon County partners with some proposed changes to their ordinances that currently provide some protections against adverse hydrologic and water quality impacts from development. I’ve been serving on a committee that has been preparing responses to the proposed changes. We recently completed the report on a proposed change to allow floodplain fill (attached).

We were placed under a tight timeline to meet a Macon County Planning Board internal deadline. There are a million more points we could have made, but I’m pretty pleased with how the writing team struck a balance between providing a scientific and legal basis for our points. without getting too terribly long-winded, particularly in the time allotted to the committee to produce multiple reports.

The planning board will review and potentially vote on 11/7 at 5:00 – the County Commission has the ultimate authority, and they may or may not listen to the Planning Board vote. I’ll send a public appeal for attendance at that meeting that you can forward to interested parties.

I know our Macon County partners have really appreciated our assistance and participation in this matter, and I’m certain this partnership effort has already benefited WATR efforts and will continue to serve us.”

WATR will update this blog as new information is available.