Enoree Rivers Confluence
Location: Tigerville Road, Travelers Rest, SC
Size: 64 acres
Habitat: Forested, floodplain, Piedmont seepage forest
Public Use: Hiking
Partners: SC Conservation Bank
Year Protected: 2015
DNR’s Heritage Trust Program established three Heritage Trust Preserves on the Enoree and North Enoree Rivers just outside Travelers Rest: the Bunched Arrowhead Heritage Trust Preserve, the Belvue Springs Heritage Trust Preserve, and the Blackwell Heritage Trust Preserve. Each of these Preserves was established to protect the rare, federally-listed, endangered Bunched Arrowhead. This plant exists only in two counties on the planet, principally in Greenville County; there are some plants across the state line in Henderson County. In S.C., it is known to exist only in the Enoree, Reedy, and upper Tyger River watersheds. It is dependent upon a rare aquatic ecosystem, the Piedmont seep, which also exists only in these areas. Each of these Preserves contains wetlands and border one of the Enoree Rivers.
These Preserves contain the only protected populations of the plants in the Enoree watershed. But because so few populations are protected and so few are known to exist, this protection is tenuous. In the Belvue Springs and Blackwell Preserves, the entire wetland complex is not protected and is at risk from upstream and nearby activities. To protect this rare part of South Carolina’s natural heritage, more populations must be protected, and the integrity of the existing Preserves need to be bolstered by additional parcels and buffering. If these three Preserves could be connected over time, then the endangered plants and the Upper Enoree Complex of rivers, tributaries, and wetlands would be better protected. At the same time, there would be a connected public area of these three Heritage Trust Preserves, plus the added connecting parcels.
When a 65-acre parcel went on the market downstream from these Preserves, it was being marketed for a small horse estate. The property contained the confluence of the Enoree and the North Enoree Rivers and upon inspection, we discovered that this parcel contained what was then the second largest population of the endangered Bunched Arrowhead plant. This population was heretofore unrecorded. It had been seen in the 1980s by a botanist but was never recorded in DNR’s database.
The seeps that feed the wetlands are part of a striking, expansive hardwood swamp, the lower section of which becomes a shallow lake when the Enoree overflows its banks. Across the river is a broad network of seeps, bogs, streams, swamps, and marshes. This area is ideal habitat for woodcock and wood duck and a myriad of other wetland-dependent birds, animals, reptiles, and amphibians. It is a surprisingly large wetland complex for the Upstate.
This property was strategically located for the three existing Heritage Trust Preserves. Given the pattern of land ownership, it would have been very difficult to join the Bunched Arrowhead Preserve and the Belvue Springs Preserve directly over land. Also, an attempt to join the Preserves in that way would not protect aquatic resources. However, we thought it would be possible to join the Preserves over time by connecting each of them to this parcel along the North Enoree and Enoree Rivers.
The more we looked into the property and its importance for the hydrology of the area, the more we realized it was urgent to protect. It contained probably the second-largest remaining population (after the population on the Bunched Arrowhead Preserve) of this extremely rare endangered species for which South Carolina has a particular responsibility. It also contained the rare South Carolina ecosystem, the Piedmont seep. This plant and this ecosystem are extremely rare, because of development and agricultural pressures, which had been steadily building over time. Also on the property was the confluence of two of the key headwater rivers of the Upstate. From a natural resource perspective, this was a signature property. We had a chance to protect part of our natural heritage which would undoubtedly have been lost if we did not act.
Envisioning the Enoree Confluence Tract as a fulcrum to work toward connecting all three Heritage Trust Preserves by a network of protected river and wetland properties, we pursued the property for over a year. We closed on the tract in 2015 with the help of the SC Conservation Bank.
