Lake Hickory Covekeepers

Please check our calendar of events to confirm the time and location of the monthly Covekeeper meeting.

Our first group of Lake Hickory Covekeepers

The Lake Hickory Covekeepers are a diverse group of volunteers who care about the water quality of their watershed.  The covekeepers are responsible for patrolling the Catawba River, educating the public, and creating a network to increase protection efforts.

For more information about Lake Hickory click here.

Issues concerning the upper basin

-Wastewater Treatment Plants-

Rising demands from increased development make treating wasterwater extremely difficult.  If sewage treatment plants are not monitored and updated with new technology, rising demands can cause plants to have system overloads, mechanical breakdowns, or improper operation.  This can result in raw sewage overflow into the receiving water body.  In order to meet rising demands, upgrades to out-of-date wastewater treatment plants throughout the upper basin are necessary to maintain and improve water quality.  For more information about wastewater treatment plants click here.

-Nutrients from Nursery Operations-

Local nursery operations also create very important issues concerning the upper Catawba basin. Nurseries throughout the basin contribute to eutrophication by using fertilizers containing phosphates. Runoff water from local nurseries has created many environmental issues, especially with sediment and other nutrients filling into nearby streams.  For more information about local nursery operations click here.

-Steep Slope Development-

Many potential development areas are along steep slopes located in the headwaters of the upper Catawba basin. Continued development in these areas will greatly increase the amount of runoff water and sediment entering the drainage basin. If steep slope development is left unregulated it can negatively impact the riverbed over time.  For more information about steep slope development click here.

 Events

Each year, the Hickory Covekeepers participate in Big Sweep on the first Saturday in October.  In 2011, the Covekeepers and other volunteers braved difficult conditions to shuttle trash in canoes from the shore to a waiting pontoon boat.  The pictures only begin to tell the difficulty of collecting the trash from this site. For more information about the 2011 cleanup, click here.

In 2010  A group of twelve volunteers consisting of Lake Hickory Covekeepers and Catawba Valley Outing Club members focused their clean-up effort in the area surrounding the US 321 bridge. More than two dumpsters full of trash were removed from this area by this group alone.  Most of the waste consisted of beer bottles, food wrappers, and plastic and styrofoam bait containers. 

The group would like to encourage the public to keep Lake Hickory beautiful by removing their own trash all year long.