The Cane River is a

river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of wate ...

Yancey County Yancey County is a county located in the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the population was 18,470. Its county seat is Burnsville. This land was inhabited by the Cherokee prior to European settlement, as was much of the S ...

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

. It originates from the

confluence In geography, a confluence (also: ''conflux'') occurs where two or more flowing bodies of water join to form a single channel. A confluence can occur in several configurations: at the point where a tributary joins a larger river (main stem); o ...

of Beech Nursery Creek, off the western slope of

Mount Mitchell Mount Mitchell, known in Cherokee as Attakulla, is the highest peak of the Appalachian Mountains and the highest peak in mainland eastern North America. It is located near Burnsville in Yancey County, North Carolina in the Black Mountain subra ...

, and Blue Sea Creek, off the northeastern slope of Blackstock Knob, in the Black Mountains. A

tributary A tributary, or affluent, is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream or main stem (or parent) river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries and the main stem river drain the surrounding drainage ...

in the

French Broad River The French Broad River is a river in the U.S. states of North Carolina and Tennessee. It flows from near the town of Rosman in Transylvania County, North Carolina, into Tennessee, where its confluence with the Holston River at Knoxville forms ...

basin, it flows northward to join the

North Toe River The North Toe River is the River source, headwaters of the Nolichucky River and a tributary in the French Broad River Drainage basin, basin. From its source at Sugar Gap, between Bald Mountain and Sugar Mountain (North Carolina), Sugar Mountain, i ...

, forming the

Nolichucky River The Nolichucky River is a river that flows through Western North Carolina and East Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. Traversing the Pisgah National Forest and the Cherokee National Forest in the Blue Ridge Mountains, the river's wate ...

Dams

The Cane River had one dam that existed, from 1908 to 2016, named the Cane River Dam. The

reinforced concrete Reinforced concrete (RC), also called reinforced cement concrete (RCC) and ferroconcrete, is a composite material in which concrete's relatively low tensile strength and ductility are compensated for by the inclusion of reinforcement having hig ...

structure was tall and spanned wide, constructed to provide

hydroelectric power Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies one sixth of the world's electricity, almost 4500 TWh in 2020, which is more than all other renewable sources combined and ...

for Yancey County. In 1940, a flood submerged the dam’s powerhouse and in the 1950s the reservoir was drained as the dams' structural integrity declined. By the 1970s, another significant flood caused a partial breech. In 2008, the Blue Ridge Resource Conservation and Development, in conjunction with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the

North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission is a state government agency created by the North Carolina General Assembly, General Assembly in 1947 to Wildlife management, conserve and sustain North Carolina's fish and wildlife resources through ...

, began disassembling the dam and river restoration. Since the project's completion in October 2016, the Cane River has been dam free.

Pollution

Historic instream gravel mining has altered the natural substrate and stream channel, in which the upper Cane River is more like a coastal plain braided stream. In 2004, several tributaries had high levels of

fecal coliform A fecal coliform (British: faecal coliform) is a facultatively anaerobic, rod-shaped, gram-negative, non-sporulating bacterium. Coliform bacteria generally originate in the intestines of warm-blooded animals. Fecal coliforms are capable of growth ...

bacteria. In 2008, the Burnsville Wastewater Treatment plant malfunctioned and spilled fecal coliform bacteria that was considered dangerous for human contact. The ecological damage from the incident had impacted the wildlife downstream from the wastewater plant, including the

Appalachian elktoe The Appalachian elktoe (''Alasmidonta raveneliana'') is a species of freshwater mussel in the family Unionidae, the river mussels. It is native to the United States, where it is known only from North Carolina and Tennessee. Description The Appa ...

. While improvements have been made to the wastewater facility, concerns remain after any heavy rain that the Yancey County Health Department issues precautionary advisories.

References

Rivers of North Carolina Rivers of Yancey County, North Carolina Tributaries of the French Broad River {{NorthCarolina-river-stub

Dams

Pollution

See also

References