By SCOTT MCKIE B.P.
One Feather Asst. Editor
CHEROKEE, N.C. – The Timber Committee of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians met on Monday, Sept. 21 and discussed a variety of topics from bear hunting to air and water quality monitoring.
Mike LaVoie, EBCI Natural Resources Department director, commented on bear hunting. “We are in the middle of bear hunting season, which closes Dec. 31. We are continuing to offer a $1,000 cash prize for a drawing if hunters are interested in submitting tooth or whole-head samples to the department for us to better understand our local bear populations. That’s voluntary, not required by code.”
He told the Committee that the EBCI Natural Resources Department is working on a cooperative service agreement with USDA Wildlife Services. LaVoie commented, “This is an opportunity for us, which we have done in the past and hope to reinitiate, where we’ve partnered with Wildlife Services to help deal with wildlife disease and wildlife nuisance issues as needed. This provides some extra capacity for us at minimal cost to deal with things such as wild hog removals, beaver removals as necessary. We will be working with the Chief’s office to try to execute this agreement in the near future.”
Dave Rowland, EBCI Hatchery supervisor, gave an update on the operation. “We’ve been fighting the drought, and the flow, and the hot weather. It’s a critical time of year at the Hatchery right now. Hopefully, it will start cooling down here in September and October.”
He added, “We still have a series shutdown. We’ve been running about 70, 75 percent for a couple years now and that’s due to flow. And that’s a big reason we want to get the recirculation pump because we just get one use out of our water. If we can pump it, that would really help us out with our production.
I think we need to look into purchasing another facility so we can produce more fish because we have more anglers now than we’ve ever had. And I just feel like we’re always kind of behind on our production and our goals.”
Rowland attended the North Carolina Aquaculture Association recently and gave a report. “It was really good because of a lot of local farmers, and a lot of them have been in the industry for a long time. Instead of going to these national things, which are nice, these are local. These are farmers that we could talk to and they have the same problems, the same kind of disease and stuff we do.”
Rainee Tetreault, EBCI Water Quality supervisor, gave a report on recreational water monitoring. “We wrapped up our last week of sampling…so, those numbers will be updated on our recreation monitoring website. And that will kind of close it out for this season until spring.”
She noted that the EBCI was hosting the National Tribal Water Council meeting during the week. “The National Tribal Water Council is an EPA partnership group with representatives from each EPA region. So, they’re going to be coming this week to see what’s going on in Cherokee and the water world. I’m very excited about it. We were selected to host based off of where our water program is. We’re one of 14 percent of tribes that have federally-approved water quality standards. So, that’s a pretty rare place to be nationally. So, we’re very proud of that and proud to show some of the projects that we’ve been working on.”
Richard Smith, an intern working in the EBCI Air Quality Program, spoke about an air quality monitoring site online (https://www.justair.co/case-studies/ebci). “I wanted to bring attention to the Just Air app. I wanted to clarify that it’s not technically an app for a mobile phone. It’s a website. The main purpose of this website is to send air quality at a local level. And, this has the advantage of being a hyper local area. So, since we have air sensors scattered throughout the Qualla Boundary – we have about 15, at least – this website will show your local air quality index at your local area. In order to sign up for it to get information, you just need to insert your cell phone number and type in the EBCI organization and find the air sensor that’s located near your community. Subscribe to it and once it’s complete, it will send you a text message based on the local air quality to see if it’s healthy.”
Smith told the Committee they will be placing flags soon in front of buildings that will indicate air quality (Green=healthy, Yellow=moderate, and Red=Unhealthy). “We started this program as an easy way for kids and other community members to check their local air quality without looking up the website. We also want to introduce it as a guideline for children and elders to decide when it’s safe to be outside.”
Derek Tahquette, EBCI Environmental Regulatory Compliance supervisor, gave an update on underground storage tanks. “There’s two sites – one in the Big Cove community, and one in Birdtown -where we do have underground storage tanks. They’ve been out of service for a long time. They’re just kind of there and we hope to use some of that (BIA) money to start the process of looking into having those tanks removed, or filled, or something of that nature, whatever works best.
We are currently in the process of closing down the tanks at Jenkins. They have been temporarily out of service for several years now…we’ve contracted and they’re developing the plan of action to go in there and fill those tanks because of the proximity to the building, power lines, and the road…plus archaeological stuff. It was just an easier option to just leave them in place and fill them.”
Tahquette went on to say, “We’ve got a trailer that we’re not using at the moment and we’re in the process of turning it into a hazardous materials response vehicle – whether it be petroleum or something else.”
Josh Parris, EBCI Natural Resources forestry program manager, updated the Committee on the new greenhouse site at Thomas Valley. He said the greenhouse apparatus is constructed, and they need to be put together and then have the shielding put on around the outside. They are currently working to get power and water to the site, and they have constructed a storage shed and wood-burning heater.
“Feeling good that we’re moving in the right direction with that side and we’ll be able to have things in soil and things growing with that.”
He gave an update on the Lickstone Ridge site. “There will be trees on the ground and, as we said before, materials are available to the community if they want that material that is cut. There’s a variety of different species in there ,but we are literally trying to skew toward regeneration of oak and hickory at that site. So, we have left most of the large oaks and hickories where we can find them. And there’s a few large cherries in there as well, but a lot of other material – red maple, sourwoods, birches, beeches – will be removed.”
Parris added, “This is a crossover between horticulture and forestry. We visited, in the last week and a half, two sites for river cane. One is in the Valley River at the Mainspring property they call Welch Farm. They need to do some management there to open up that canopy to allow for more growth of river cane. We have a bit of funding through NRCS (Natural Resources Conservation Service) and also through our interest in growing river cane to get that work going. So, we’re working with them…we also had an opportunity to visit the Southern Highlands Conservancy property that’s owned on the Cane River in Yancey County. There’s good cane there as well, too…it is a place that we could, really quickly, do some management of that cane and maybe augment that cane which is already a good artisan resource and can still be.”
