There is a grounded barge in the Lake Adger public marina where the water levels are only inches deep and the sediment levels are ever growing.

It is stuck in the 150,000 cubic yards of sediment, accumulated in the marina over the last 92 years. This is like 7.2 football fields placed end-to-end and filled 10 feet deep with sediment. A full report of the situation is documented in the 2015 Dredging Feasibility Study by Altamont Environmental.

Sediment happens in man-made lakes because of upstream/uphill erosion spurred by nature and development, like the building of Interstate 26, digging in of new communities, and destabilizing protective river/streambank buffers by clear-cutting trees/vegetation.

Further, Lake Adger has suffered untold amounts of newly released sediment loads from two recent projects: NC Wildlife Resource Commission – Big Hungry Dam Deconstruction upstream (the Big Hungry River flows into Green River, which flows into the lake), and the PSNC Energy gas line trench crossing in the Green River, eight tenths of a mile upstream from the marina.

Back in June 2016, we were informed that the NCWRC would fulfill its obligation to dredge (just) the public boating access channel in the marina by their fiscal year end 2017.

Simultaneously, efforts have been slowly ongoing to locate appropriate Green River land to set up a long term permanent dredging operation, as inflowing sediment will continue to occur. 

It is of utmost importance that we (Polk County, state and other stakeholders) finally prioritize this pressing dredging need, collaboratively, coming up with the best long-term sedimentation solutions in order to protect the long-term viability and ability for Lake Adger to serve as a healthy fishery, public recreation area and water resource for all.

This is an unaddressed maintenance and management item, same as the long overdue dam repairs, and it deserves our full attention because our water supplies matter. Our aging and neglected water infrastructure matters to public safety, health, welfare and our future.

The World Equestrian Games are coming to Polk in 2018 and so are 500,000 visitors and so are more droughts and more dried up wells.

The Duke Energy William S. Lee Nuclear Plant Project has just been given the green light/licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to proceed, which because of its huge water demands from the Broad River (downstream from our Green River), could leave the region’s drinking water supplies lacking.

The ongoing Regional Water Systems Merger Study between Broad River Water Authority/Inman-Campobello Water District/Polk County is making a case of a long-term partnership plan to supply the region with an alternate water source, instead of the Broad River, and that is the Lake Adger Reservoir/Green River. 

Why, with all these above big regional partners looming on the horizon, with all the looming big future plans, who all see the absolute need and interest in getting this vital resource ready for all that lies ahead, why are we not seeing all hands-on-deck collaborations, nor any effective work forward that would address this resource’s many needs?

Polk could contribute an important piece of the puzzle in helping to secure the region’s water supply infrastructure by actively searching for the best dredging solutions, approaches and proposals for these sediment woes, and I don’t see that we are.

What I see is this barge stuck in the mud, in our public marina.

~ Sky Conard, Lake Adger, N.C.