Shoreline Management
Tapoco developed a Shoreline Management Plan (SMP) in cooperation with an Advisory Committee, whose members included representatives of local, state, and federal governments, shoreline residents, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, the Friends of Lake Santeetlah, Cross Creek Property Owners Association, The Nature Conservancy of Tennessee, American Rivers, the Sierra Club, and Tennessee Clean Water Network and individual property owners. The stated goals of the plan are to:
- Balance the protection of the important environmental, cultural, recreational, and aesthetic resources unique to the Tapoco Project with the provision of recreation opportunities.
- Establish a process for reviewing and approving shoreline development uses and activities that encourage stewardship of environmental, cultural, recreational, and aesthetic resources by avoiding, offsetting, or mitigating impacts to the resources.
Generally, Tapoco’s management priorities at the Project reservoirs are to protect aquatic and near shore terrestrial habitats for rare, threatened, and endangered species, provide adequate public access and recreational facilities at the Project reservoirs, and protect historic and cultural resources. Because the mainstem reservoirs are undeveloped and surrounded largely by federally owned and managed lands and therefore, provide a unique semi-primitive to primitive recreational experience, an additional management priority for the mainstem reservoirs is to protect the shorelines in a natural and undeveloped state. Protecting the remaining undeveloped shorelines at Santeetlah Reservoir is also a management priority. For maps providing different classifications of Santeetlah Reservoir’s Shoreline, please see the links below:
Important Aquatic Habitat Areas on Santeetlah Reservoir
Important Sensitive and Natural Areas on Santeetlah Reservoir
Moderate and High Probability Areas for Cultural Resources on Santeetlah Reservoir
Santeetlah Reservoir Shoreline Classification
Tapoco has established procedures for permitting private recreation (individual or shared) and multi-use recreation (public, commercial, or private group) facilities within the FERC-licensed Project Boundary or on APGI-owned lands. Tapoco also has established procedures for approving subdivision access and industrial uses and facilities. These permitting procedures, combined with the classification of shoreline are the means by which all decisions on shoreline development for private recreation and multi-use facilities and other non-Project uses of and activities on Project lands will be made.
By order dated March 31, 2006, FERC SMP Approval , the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved Tapoco's SMP with minor modifications.
In accordance with the FERC order dated March 31, 2006, Tapoco distributed an addendum in June 2006, SMP Addendum, that revised Tapoco’s Shoreline_Stewardship Policy, Specifications for Private Recreation Use Facilities, and Subdivision Access Approval,_Multi-use Facility Permitting, and Industrial Approval Procedures, which are included in the SMP as appendices. The entire SMP can also be downloaded below:
Tapoco Shoreline Management Plan (without figures)
SMP: Figures 3-1 and 3-2
SMP: Figures 3-3 and 3-4
SMP: Figure 3-5
SMP: Figures 5-1, 5-2, and 5-3
SMP: Figure 7-1
SMP: Figure 7-2
SMP: Figure 7-3
SMP: Figure 7-4
SMP: Figures 7-5, 7-6, and 7-7
For questions about the SMP and required permits for shoreline uses and activities
go
Applications for private piers, shoreline alteration (excavation), and shoreline stabilization can be downloaded by clicking the following links:
Pier Application
Excavation Application
Shoreline Stabilization Application
