The Elon University Center for Environmental Studies, in partnership with the Haw River Assembly, has received a $97,000 grant from the Clean Water Management Trust Fund to study land adjacent to a 28-mile stretch of the Haw River in Alamance and Chatham counties. The two-year project will assess lands adjacent to the river, measuring their value to the river’s protection.
The project, called the Lower Haw River Riparian Corridor Conservation Plan, will be managed through the Haw River Assembly, a non-profit citizens’ group founded in 1982 to restore and protect the Haw River and Jordan Lake. Janet MacFall, director of the Elon Center for Environmental Studies, will coordinate research and plan development for the project. Environmental Studies faculty members Brant Touchette and Honglin Xiao will also contribute to the project.
Elon will hire a full-time project coordinator and will create a Haw River interns program, giving Elon students an opportunity to work on the project and gain practical experience by doing field work and developing a community education plan.
The study, scheduled to begin in February 2006, will evaluate lands adjacent to the Haw River from Interstate 40/85 in Alamance County south to Bynum in Chatham County. Landowners and communities along the river will be contacted as part of an environmental outreach effort. Conservation easements will be acquired for lands identified by the study as being valuable in protecting the river, which will be used to begin development of a conservation corridor from Alamance County to Jordan Lake.
Almost one million people live near the Haw River, using it for drinking water, waste disposal, storm water management and recreation.
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