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From YouTube: Soil & Water Conservation's EWP Project
Description
Laurie Brokaw with Buncombe County Soil and Water Conservation District explains the Emergency Watershed Protection Project which restored over nine miles of streambank that was damaged by Hurricanes Ivan and Frances.
A
Hi
I'm
Gloria
broke
out
with
Buncombe
County
Soil
and
Water
Conservation
District
I
wanted
to
give
you
a
little
idea.
What
we've
been
up
to
the
last
year
and
a
half
since
Hurricane,
Ivan
and
Frances
hit.
We
had
huge
damage
in
our
streams
in
the
county.
Our
agency
knew
we
had
to
do
something,
but
we
have
a
really
limited
budget
and
most
of
our
funds
need
to
be
spent
on
agricultural
lands.
So
we
knew
that
that
would
just
barely
touch
the
damage
that
really
needed
to
be
repaired.
A
Luckily,
our
partnering
agency,
the
Natural
Resource
Conservation
Service,
stepped
up
to
the
plate
and
offered
to
pay
75
percent
of
the
cost.
To
do
some
basic
bank
stabilization
work.
In
the
meantime,
we
were
waiting
to
see
whether
the
state
was
going
to
cover
the
other
25%.
We
didn't
know
if
that
was
going
to
happen.
A
So
Wanda
green
was
was
kind
enough
to
come
up
with
that
20
being
willing
to
pay
for
that
25
percent
until
the
state
would
decide
what
they
were
going
to
do
so
in
the
end,
they
did
decide
to
cover
that
25
percent
during
the
rest
of
that
time.
Our
staff
was
busy
working
on
what
we
call
damage
survey
reports
on
sites
all
over
the
county,
they're
either
sites
that
we
identified
or
were
called
in
to
us,
reported
to
us
during
our
signup
period.
A
The
next
step
that
we
had
to
go
through
was
to
come
up
with
engineering
designs
for
the
repairs
of
those
200-plus
sites,
and
we
only
have
one
engineer
who
works
with
us
from
the
division
of
soil
and
water,
who
covers
all
16
counties
in
Western,
North
Carolina,
and
we
knew
poor
Jeff
wasn't
going
to
be
able
to
handle
designing
all
the
repairs
for
all
the
sites
for
all
those
counties.
So
it
was
determined
that
he
would
handle
what
they
called
our
exigency
or
urgent
and
compelling
sites
that
threatening
people's
homes
and
businesses
and
things.
A
So
he
took
care
of
that,
and
our
staff
took
care
of
the
permitting
for
those
sites,
the
other
sites
we
actually
hired
engineering
firms,
one
from
Charlotte
and
one
locally
to
take
care
of
the
rest
of
the
design
work
and
the
massive
permitting
process
that
went
along
with
that.
Our
staff
also
was
lucky
enough
to
have
the
help
of
Stephen
hunter
from
the
planning
department.
Who
was
our
man
in
the
field
on
most
of
our
sites
during
construction?
So
we
couldn't
have
done
it
without
Stephen.
During.
B
The
ewp
project
I,
was
in
charge
for
the
south
end
of
the
county.
The
county
was
split
into
two
different
groups.
There
was
the
north
end,
the
south
end,
the
south
end
that
I
had
consisted
roughly
of
100
sites.
These
sites
ranged
in
size
anywhere
that
took
maybe
a
half
a
day.
Some
of
them
took
probably
two
weeks.
Some
problems
we
ran
into
were
deadlines
we
had
to
meet.
B
We
had
to
meet
October
15th
deadline
for
a
trout
moratorium,
and
this
is
basically
having
all
of
our
work
done
before
this
date
due
to
the
spawning
season
for
the
trout
and
that
runs
basically
from
October
to
April.
So
we
had
a
tough
time
getting
that
done,
but
we
did
finally
get
that
done.
Some
other
deadlines
we
ran
into
was
shortages
of
rock
with
all
the
contractors
working
throughout
the
county.
There
was
only
a
limited
amount
of
rocks,
so
we
ran
into
some
downtown
with
that.
So
that's
sort
of
prolonged
our
project
as
well.
B
A
Reason
why
I'm
mentioning
all
this
history
and
all
this
pain
that
we
went
through
with
all
of
these
things
not
to
put
you
to
sleep,
but
I
really
want
to
make.
You
understand
that
this
was
a
massive
undertaking
for
a
very
small
agency.
Historically,
that
Natural
Resource,
Conservation
Service
has
handled
the
ewp
program
or
the
emergency
watershed
protection
program,
which
is
who
did
this
work
they
handled
it
exclusively.
This
is
the
new
NRCS
they've
decided
that
the
districts
and
the
local
governments,
in
our
case
the
county
government,
should
handle
that
themselves.
A
Also
in
the
past,
some
of
this
work
took
up
to
three
years
to
complete,
and
this
time
the
NRCS
said
that
we
had
to
complete
that
work
in
just
over
a
year.
We
did
that,
but
it
was
very
difficult.
We
had
so
many
things
to
overcome.
We
had
a
huge
amount
of
the
construction
work
actually
fall
in
the
autumn
and
the
winter,
so
there
were
very
difficult
weather
conditions
to
work
in
some
cases,
some
of
the
permits
and
site
approvals
that
we
had
to
get
for
each
site.
A
It
seemed
like
it
wasn't
ever
gonna
end,
but
it
did,
and
luckily
we
managed
to
repair
almost
nine
miles
of
stream
bank,
which
is
about
47,000
linear
feet
within
the
county,
and
that
was
at
a
cost
of
about
four
million
dollars.
None
to
the
landowners.
It
was
all
covered
by
either
the
federal
government
or
the
state
government,
and
we
wanted
to
show
you
a
few
sites
that
we've
actually
done.
A
A
The
banks,
with
some
rock
the
rock
structure
in
the
stream,
is
actually
called
a
cross
beam
and
it
directs
the
flow
of
water
back
towards
the
center
of
the
stream
allows
deposition
to
happen
on
the
stream
bank
areas
and
also
takes
the
energy
and
the
stress
away
from
the
banks,
reducing
erosion.
This
kind
of
structure,
along
with
regular
veins,
j-hooks
and
all
sorts
of
things,
were
used
all
over
the
county
in
our
sights.
This
is
another
site
up
in
Bernardsville.
A
They
had
severe
stream
bank
erosion
that
was
threatening
their
barn
and
we
came
in
and
put
some
fill
material
in
armored
the
banks,
with
some
large
rock
and
revegetated
the
plants
that
we
revegetated
with
the
root
structure,
will
help
hold
the
soil
in
place
and
reduce
erosion
in
the
future.
I
want
to
thank
Gary
Higgins,
our
department
director
because
of
the
number
of
hours
he
put
in
over
the
last
year
and
a
half
this
project
couldn't
have
taken
place
if
it
weren't
for
his
hard
work.
A
B
I'd
like
to
thank
most
of
all
against
the
county,
the
citizens
have
signed
up
for
this
program.
Without
them,
it
would
never
been
a
success
or
actually
wished
more
people
would
have
signed
up
for
the
program.
There
was
a
lot
of
people
who
we
did.
We
weren't
able
to
help
because
they
just
didn't
sign
up
that
they
weren't
aware
of
the
program.
So
hopefully,
if
this
ever
does
happen
again,
more
people
will
sign
up
because
it's
definitely
good
program
and
helped
a
lot
of
people.