The Ashe County Planning Board met in regular session on Thursday, April 1 and made quick work of a limited agenda, which featured a presentation of a resolution in regards to the reclassification of the North Fork of the New River (NFNR).

Following approval of the boards March 18 meeting, the board heard requests for both preliminary and final plat approval of Heritage Ventures subdivision. Both were unanimously approved.

Next the board turned to the resolution on reclassification of the NFNR. The reclassification is to make the NFNR an Outstanding Resource Water (ORW), which is a supplemental classification designation intended to protect unique and special waters having excellent water quality and being of exceptional state or national ecological or recreational significance. To qualify, the Division of Water Quality (DWQ) must rate waters excellent.

DWQ staff did determine that the NFNR did meet the criteria for ORW classification because the waters have excellent water quality and have several records of state and federal special concern species, the Hellbender Salamander and the Spike Freshwater mussel. The purpose of the rule change is to provide protection for the resources and quality of the water.

The proposed ORW reclassified area is, for the most part, undeveloped and forested with some small farmlands and a few residences. Approximately 325 miles of water bodies exist in the watershed, which measures 159,342 acres in size.  

Board members passed a resolution in favor of the reclassification of the NFNR providing it is accomplished in a manner that will allow reasonable expansion of current discharges at United Chemi-Con, Lansing and West Jefferson, and that there be clear authority to place a discharge in the Warrensville area of the county.

The Ashe County Planning Board meets at 5:30 p.m. on the first and third Thursday of each month in the small, third-floor courtroom of the Ashe County Courthouse in Jefferson. The public is invited to attend.