Conservancy protects South Mountains Headwaters Tract

For the first time in three years, one of North Carolina's 41 state parks has gotten a little more meat on its bones.

South Mountains State Park, near Morganton, one of the most rugged, remote parks in the state, has grown by 757 acres. The addition was part of a much larger project in which The Foothills Conservancy of North Carolina, in partnership with N.C. Division of Parks and Recreation, the N.C. Clean Water Management Trust Fund and other funders permanently conserved one of the largest remaining unprotected Catawba River Basin watershed tracts in the South Mountains of Burke County.

The conservancy and the state parks system purchased a 2,207-acre tract known as Simms Hill on June 4 from owner Tim Sweeney. Of the total acreage, 757 acres were acquired by the state and added to South Mountains State Park, bringing the park to more than 19,000 acres.

State Parks spokesman Charlie Peek said the last time a park acquired so much land was in 2012 when Chimney Rock State Park grew by 1,200 acres.

"We have not been in the land acquisition frame of mind for a while, but the South Mountains property has always been on our radar because it's a headwaters property," Peek said. "This is a tremendous acquisition for the park. It contains Class A trout streams that also feed the Catawba River. The park has grown from a recreational resource into a real natural resource asset for protecting water quality."

The Foothills Conservancy, a regional land trust based in Morganton, acquired the remaining 1,450 acres to establish its new South Mountains Headwaters Preserve for the protection and enhancement of water quality, biodiversity and wildlife habitat. A permanent conservation easement protecting 300-foot streamside buffer zones on 624 acres of the property was conveyed to the Clean Water Management Trust Fund. Foothills Conservancy acquired an additional 43-acre tract known as the Wright Tract earlier this year, which will also be part of the new preserve.

"The project tract is a total of 2,207 acres, and that entire tract adjoins three miles of park boundary," said Andrew Kota, the conservancy's stewardship director and project leader. "The preserve is directly to the east of the park so the preserve expands and extends the existing state park."

The Conservancy also owns more than 3,000 acres in other preserves in Western North Carolina, including the Catawba Headwaters Preserve in Old Fort and the Riverbend Preserve on the Broad River in Rutherford County.

"We try to do restoration management, get rid of invasive plant species if we find them, do habitat improvement, a little prescribed burning, to maintain the ecological integrity of the area," Kota said. As far as public access, he said, that is a possibility, but first the conservancy will be working on assessments on the property.

More than 16 miles of headwater streams lace the rugged, heavily forested mountain tract and feed the state-designated "Outstanding Resource Waters" of the Henry Fork and Jacob Fork rivers, he said.

These rivers converge downstream to form the South Fork of the Catawba River, a major tributary of the Catawba River that supplies clean drinking water to more than 2 million people in North Carolina. The watershed ranks as a high protection priority in Foothills Conservancy's 2010 "South Mountains Outstanding Resource Waters Riparian Corridor Conservation Plan" funded by the Clean Water Management Trust Fund.

Achieving permanent protection for Simms Hill, involving a multiyear, collaborative effort to raise $3.3 million from numerous public and private funding partners, is a "big deal," Kota said.

"We've done larger projects in terms of acreage and money, but this is a big deal. What really rises to the top is the vast number of stream miles on the tract," he said. The Simms Hill project is also big in terms of the number of partners involved and the various conservation tools used to acquire such highly prized property and place it in permanent conservation.

"Over two-and-a-half years, the conservancy partnered with the private landowner and two state agencies and leveraged funds from seven different public and private sources to protect this valuable watershed and enhance public enjoyment of South Mountains State Park," Kota said.

In 2012, Foothills Conservancy approached conservationist Sweeney about partnering to protect the bank-owned tract after the previous owner's development plans failed following the recent recession. Sweeney, founder and CEO of Epic Games who lives in Cary, is also the owner of the 7,000-acre Box Creek Wilderness State Natural Heritage Area, a large swath of forested land in the foothills of McDowell and Rutherford counties.

The conservation value of the Simms Hill land was so high, Kota said, that the state's Clean Water Management Trust Fund awarded three grants totaling $1.8 million to the project: two to Foothills Conservancy and one to the state parks system. Each grant had to be matched by donated land value or other funds. Additional public funds included $220,000 from the N.C. Parks & Recreation Trust Fund and $40,000 from the N.C. Department of Justice's Environmental Enhancement Grants program.

Private contributions made up the remaining $1.4 million needed to complete the acquisition and support long-term stewardship of the 1,450-acre South Mountains Headwaters conservancy preserve.

Philanthropists Fred and Alice Stanback, of Salisbury, made a gift of $880,000 toward the acquisition. Sweeney donated two inholding tracts totaling 100 acres, within the large Simms Hill Tract, which he acquired for $238,000. Other private grants for the project included $100,000 from Duke Energy's new Water Resources Fund and $23,000 from Conservation Trust for North Carolina's Mountain Mini-Grant program. Unifour Foundation, Community Foundation of Burke County and Huffman-Cornwell Foundation grants also helped support the conservancy's multiyear protection effort.