Black Mountain to install stormwater mitigation projects; Where will they be?

Black Mountain will be installing two new green mitigation projects in an ongoing effort to control stormwater in the town.

One of the projects will focus on the Terry Estates parking lot and will install rain gardens. According to stormwater technician Anne Phillip, these rain gardens will address runoff from the parking lot as well as seepage under the lot.

“Basically give it a place to soak in and slow down and take out the pollutants from the parking lot,” Phillip said. “That could be anything from oil and grease or copper from brake pads.”

Phillip said heat is also a concern. She said the rain garden will prevent water from running off the parking lot straight into the drain into the Swannanoa River and instead will slow it down and soak into the rain garden. The rain garden will also cool the water before it goes into the river.

Phillip described it as a “water quality improvement project” and said “it’s better for everything that lives in the river.”

The other project, related to the Terry Estates parking lot project, concerns the town’s public works building. This project will also build a rain garden, this time to capture runoff from the building's roof that currently goes straight into the Swannanoa River. Phillip said the primary issue with the public works building is the temperature of the water.

According to the town website, “the project will remove 23 pounds of nitrogen, 1.9 pounds of phosphorous and 339 pounds of soil and sedimentation each year.”

Phillip said these projects are being funded primarily by grants. The total for the project is $127,995, with the town being responsible for $51,198 over two years.

Some of the grant funding comes from a water quality improvement grant from the Land of Sky Regional Council, but Phillip said most of the funding comes from the state-administered North Carolina Division of Water Quality.

These projects were identified in the Upper Swannanoa River Watershed Management Plan from 2016 following the Swannanoa River being put on the impaired water list.

“Essentially the river was classified as impaired and a management plan was put together to address it,” Phillip said. “This is one of the opportunities they identified to put in a water quality improvement projects to benefit the health of the river.”

The plan is also in Black Mountain’s stormwater master plan from last year.

The current plan is for the projects to begin construction in mid-August and for construction to be complete in mid- to late September.

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