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Submitted Photo A photo of sedimenation in Jewel Lake.
Nearly a year later, a Cashiers couple and the Chattooga Conservancy are still in the midst of litigation against High Hampton Resort for the alleged pollution of Fowler Creek.
In September 2021, the Chattooga Conservancy and Cashiers residency Craig and Nancy Probst filed a complaint against High Hampton Resort for the prolonged pollution of Fowler Creek and the Chattooga River, for which Fowler Creek is a tributary.
The citizen’s suit was filed under the Federal Clean Water Act and accuses High Hampton of four different counts, including violations of the Clean Water Act and the North Carolina Sedimentation Pollution Control Act, as well as trespassing and nuisance on the Probst property and punitive damages.
The lawsuit came after attempts by the Chattooga Conservancy to mitigate the alleged problem alongside High Hampton Resort.
“Starting in early 2019, people started calling us up saying, ‘Why is Fowler Creek running so muddy?’ and so that’s when we started hearing about it from people that were living downstream,” Chattooga Conservancy Executive Director Nicole Hayler said. “And since then, it’s been a continual timeline of people calling us up, plus me also going out to High Hampton and getting tours of the property from Owen Schultz, who is the manager there, to look around. There’s been a continual timeline of silty, muddy water, originating in the High Hampton compound flowing into Fowler Creek downstream into the headwaters of the Chattooga River, which is outstanding resource waters, which is a great concern, because outstanding resource waters are quite rare in the state of North Carolina and if they’re degraded, it’s hard to go back on that.”
The High Hampton property was first developed to a limited degree in 1922 by E.L. McKee. In 2017, the property was purchased by Daniel Communities, LLC, and the property began working on the approval for their plan of developing at least 243 residential lots, rehabilitation and expansion of the existing golf course, construction of new facilities and associated infrastructure. In 2018, the Chattooga Conservancy was made aware of the resort’s development plans.
“So, we as an organization, the Chattooga Conservancy, heard about this back in July of 2018,’’ Hayler said. “The state permitting process is something you have to be very proactive about, it’s not like you can get on a mailing list and they send you everything, so we heard about it at the last minute, so we submitted some comments. After looking at the plans, we thought, goodness, this is a massive development from what High Hampton used to be. It involves golf course rehabilitation and expansion. And also, subdividing large acreages of previously undeveloped properties in the High Hampton compound for over 200 houses and solving all the associated levels of infrastructure. So, we definitely flagged it as something we wanted to watch.”
Maintaining the waters of Fowler Creek and the Chattooga River is at the top of the Chattooga Conservancy’s list of priorities. The Chattooga River is designated as outstanding resource waters, which is a classification given to bodies of water that exhibit excellent water quality and demonstrate ecological or recreational significance.
“I mean, the main reason we have pursued this vigorously is we want to preserve the environment in Cashiers and we know that’s an uphill task for sure,” Nancy Probst said. “Our creek and the Chattooga, they’re both designated outstanding wild water resources. That should guarantee them extra protection, but it hasn’t seen that it has and I’m disappointed in the Department of Environmental Quality.”
The steep slopes of the High Hampton property have been at the heart of the complaint as the plaintiffs argue the development process at High Hampton and failure to institute reliable erosion control measures has allegedly resulted in large amounts of silt and other eroded materials to pollute Fowler Creek and by extension the Chattooga River.
“It was a, the typical word I’ve used, is pristine mountain creek, ‘’ Probst said. “You know, it was just crystal clear. Lots of little fish, lots of bigger fish, trout. We had people fish at our place that pulled out trout that were about a foot long. I mean, good sized trout. Just a pristine mountain creek. While this was going on, I could stand ankle deep in this creek and not see my toes. So that was the difference. And now the creek bed itself is heavily silted from all the silt over three years that’s been deposited during this process.”
Currently, the lawsuit is still pending, however, the plaintiffs hope to reach a settlement sometime in the future.
“The purpose of this action is, by no means, just to deal with the past, it’s to deal with the future,” the plaintiffs’ lawyer, Craig Pendergrast, said. “And ultimately, not really just High Hampton, but as other developments come in. The ‘Develop Cashiers Responsibly’ group was working with Macaulay, and then Kessler got it. The reason that the Kessler plan is the way it is, and it’s really worth noting, that seven acres of land that’s going to get preserved is the steep hillside that faces down into Cashiers. That’s why those seven acres is where it is. Because there’s better land to develop on that property in a profitable way. But that steep stuff is hazardous to develop not just from a landslide perspective, but because of the erosion and sedimentation potentials and rock and runoff down which would ultimately get to the Frank Allen Road and the world-famous wet crossing.”
High Hampton Resort did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
“I’m not going to highly criticize the Hampton development plan,” Pendergrast said. “The erosion and sedimentation plan was deficient, clearly, but part of the contributor to this, and particularly now that we’re in the homebuilding phase, if you think about it, is the the yield that High Hampton wanted and is getting from having taken that undeveloped, those undeveloped portions on the steep hillsides headed up to the cliffs of Rock Mountain and Chimney Top, and making as many lots as possible in there.”
Pendergrast discussed the current development happening at High Hampton and said density plays a role in protecting the surrounding environment and streams.
“It would be 243 to 248, something like that maybe, lots. When you want that many, then they’re smaller, and there’s less room to put in erosion control sediment traps and to have more buffer from the edge of the property from the building spot on the property,” Pendergrast said. “That density contributes to the difficulties of erosion and sedimentation control, so it leads towards doing less dense development in order to also be protective of the streams.”
- By Kaylee Cook