Named for the vast cypress swamps through which it once flowed, Cypress Creek and its tributaries meander 117 miles through the farms, forests, and villages of southern Franklin County, connecting people and places and weaving together a centuries-old story of agriculture, ecology, and changing land use. The creek feeds into Lake Royale, a gated community with four thousand homes surrounding a man-made lake, before emptying into the Tar River, a source of drinking water for hundreds of thousands of people downstream.
With Raleigh’s suburbs continuing their northward expansion, caretakers of the Cypress Creek watershed must resolve one of the toughest dilemmas of urban growth. The demand for clean, plentiful water is increasing at the same time that new rooftops, lawns, and paved surfaces are reducing the ability to provide that water.
The residents of Lake Royale are already familiar with these effects. With every rainfall, the changing landscape of new homes, schools, office parks, and shopping centers means that less high-quality water is naturally filtering back into the ground. At the same time, it means more contaminated runoff is concentrating in streams, lakes, and ponds where it can pollute drinking water and trigger flash flooding.
Through a grant secured from the North Carolina Clean Water Management Trust Fund, Unique Places’ then subsidiary, The Conservation Consultant, was hired by Franklin County’s Planning Department to develop an action plan for the Cypress Creek watershed. The hope is that solutions successfully implemented there will serve as a model for watersheds throughout the region.
We assembled a team of hydrologists and conservation experts who worked with the community at large to forge an approach to managing growth that preserved the integrity of vital water resources. Using detailed aerial maps to identify where intact forests, wetlands, and land-water buffers shore up well-preserved streams; and where, on the other hand, intensive agriculture and development degrade stream health. Our team developed specific strategies for reducing the existing impact of farming and development on surface and ground water, as well as for minimizing their future impact.
Our plan is based on an understanding that each watershed has its own carrying capacity, a natural limit on how much total development can be sustained before potable water supplies start to seriously decline. Cypress Creek is reaching that threshold.
Fortunately, now, for the first time, the region is armed with a comprehensive computer database dedicated to making environmentally - sound conservation and restoration decisions. Final recommendations cover three main objectives:
