John Henry Nelson. Photo by Kiko Salazar
By Emma Castleberry
Shortly before Hurricane Helene, Conserving Carolina completed an 87-acre floodplain restoration project along the French Broad River in Mills River. The Kings Bridge property was initially purchased by Conserving Carolina before being transferred to the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission (NCWRC), who now manages it as a Wildlife Conservation Area.
“Floodplain connectivity projects like the Kings Bridge site in the French Broad River watershed promote habitat complexity, increase species diversity, enhance water quality and reduce erosion and sedimentation,” says Scott Loftis, mountain region aquatic habitat coordinator with the NCWRC. “These large-scale landscape projects restore and conserve natural areas, allowing biological communities to flourish and contributing to the uplift in ecosystem services within the watershed that ultimately benefit human communities through cleaner water, green spaces and the opportunity to maintain contact with the natural world.”
Kestrel. Photo by Nick Holshouser
The recently completed project includes a 35-acre wetland, 50 acres of reforestation and a fish habitat slough designed to support species like the muskellunge, a predator fish on the brink of extinction. “The restoration projects add niche ecosystems back to the land,” says John Henry Nelson, owner of the Mills River environmental construction company Stone and Spade. “We are planting native shrubs and trees to reforest the area into a natural floodplain forest. With dense vegetation and good access trails, we create a good balance with restoring the land and providing access for nature lovers.”
Stone and Spade is also facilitating Conserving Carolina’s partnership with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) at Kings Bridge. “Stone and Spade propagated rivercane, yellowroot and planted white oak for the craftsman and artisan of the EBCI,” says Nelson. “All these plants are traditionally used by Cherokee. The rivercane is used for baskets, blowguns, building materials and more. The yellowroot is medicinal and has burberines that are potent dyes used for basket dyeing.” Rivercane also serves as an excellent streambank stabilizer, making this area even more resilient.
Restoring natural floodplains has a direct, quantifiable impact on how our region weathers extreme events like Helene. Engineer Greg Jennings calculated that three of Conserving Carolina’s natural floodplain restoration sites—Kings Bridge, Mud Creek and Pleasant Grove—stored at least 1.25 billion gallons of water from Helene. It’s likely that the localized storm damage would have been significantly worse if these floodplain projects had not been completed.
“Restoration sites are very important because they are designed to allow water to flood the site in a harmonious way that gives the water more room to spread out over the space,” says Nelson. “The slowing of water allows the sediment to fall out and deposit on the land in a way that’s healthy for the ecosystem.”
Kings Bridge is currently closed to allow the newly planted flora to become established, but the area will eventually be open to the public for fishing, birding and other wildlife observation. Nelson reports that there is already an abundance of waterfowl, Bald Eagles, hawks, Ospreys, herons, kingfishers and songbirds in the area—a testament to the immediate and tangible value of this newly restored natural space.
Learn more and stay updated about the Kings Bridge reopening at ConservingCarolina.org.
