Highlights of HRWA Achievements

• Conducted stream restoration projects to restore over 4,000 feet of eroded streambank.
• Designed and conducted the first watershed-wide assessment of stream habitat health and erosion problems, with trained volunteers cataloguing over 200 sites during the fall of 2001. This assessment was funded, in part, with Tennessee Department of Agriculture, Nonpoint Source Program and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
• Former Board President, Mike Walton, conducted the first survey on erosion and habitat quality for the entire length of the Harpeth River, featured in the Williamson A.M. on May 22, 2001
• Hired its first Executive Director in July 2001 with a grant from River Network and opened an office in Franklin.
• Raised money to print the first map for the Harpeth River watershed, produced by the Cumberland River Compact. The map indicates and describes which streams and segments of the Harpeth are considered "impaired" according to the Tennessee Department of Environmental Conservation and the 2002 303(d) list of impaired streams.
• Launched the first volunteer sediment study for the Harpeth River with over 30 sites in collaboration with the Cumberland River Compact (CRC). The CRC designed this study because high silt content in the river after heavy rain was identified as a key concern by people at public meetings held by the CRC in 1999.
• Co-sponsored with the Cumberland River Compact the first watershed workshop for science teachers in Williamson County.
• Worked to see that seven miles of TVA transmission lines shifted off West Harpeth
• Participated in the completion of the largest stream mitigation (TSMP) in the state on West Harpeth
• Work with the design team to ensure that SR 840 was realigned to protect most pristine headwaters systems in middle TN, the South Harpeth
• Served on the Stormwater Appeals Board and helped frame progressive, new local stormwater runoff and stream buffer regulations that were adopted
• Failing Lynwood sewage treatment plant fined and fixed
• Halted large private dam on South Harpeth
• Blocked proposal for use of Quarry on Scenic Harpeth for a C&D landfill.
• Worked with the City and TDEC to demonstrate the need for a new permit for Franklin water withdrawals to protect critical instream flow- TDEC issued new protective permit November 2007

HRWA Scientific Studies Completed

• Dissolved Oxygen in the Harpeth River 2000, 2002, 2006, 2007
• Sediment Study at Lowhead Dam 2007-2008
• Headwaters Nutrient Study 2006
• Bank Erosion Study 2006
• Benthic Macroinvertebrate Inventory 2005, 2007
• Rapid Stream Assessment on Little Harpeth 2004
• Sediment Study 2002
• Visual Stream Assessment 2001