Chatuge Reservoir

Ecological health rating
Swimming advisories
Fish consumption advisories

Ecological health rating

Chatuge Reservoir rated fair in 2007, primarily due to lower average chlorophyll concentrations. It also rated fair in 2001 due to improved chlorophyll and dissolved oxygen conditions.  In eight out of the past 10 years, however, Chatuge has rated poor.

Weather conditions—particularly, the timing and amount of rainfall—and the related changes in runoff have proved to be major factors in the variation of ecological health scores for Chatuge and many other reservoirs. Dissolved oxygen and chlorophyll—the indicators most responsive to changes in weather conditions—tend to rate better in the forebay area of tributary reservoirs with long residence times (reservoirs in which the water sits for a longer period) during drought conditions and to rate lower during periods of more normal to high rainfall and runoff. This is because fewer nutrients and less organic material are washed into the reservoir when rainfall and runoff are low, which tends to result in lower chlorophyll concentrations and less oxygen demand to decompose organic materials.

TVA has monitored two locations on Chatuge Reservoir—the deep, still water near the dam and the Shooting Creek location—annually since 1998.

Chatuge Reservoir Ecological Health Ratings, 1994-2007

Click chart for raw data.

The table below shows the ratings for individual ecological health indicators at Chatuge in 2006. These ratings are briefly explained in the paragraphs that follow.

Swimming advisories

TVA has not issued any swimming advisories for Chatuge Reservoir.   

E. coli bacteria levels in samples collected in 2007 were within Environmental Protection Agency’s suggested guidelines for water contact.

The locations sampled in 2007 were:

Fish consumption advisories

The state of Georgia issued a fish consumption advisory for spotted bass in the Georgia portion of Chatuge Reservoir because of mercury contamination. The state advises people not to eat more than one meal a week of spotted bass between 12 and 16 inches in length.

TVA collected channel catfish and largemouth bass from the reservoir for tissue analysis in the autumn of 2004. The results, which were provided to state agencies in Georgia and North Carolina, were similar to those of previous years. TVA will collect fish from Chatuge again in the autumn of 2008.

Chatuge Reservoir is located in Clay County in western North Carolina and Towns County in northeastern Georgia.

More about Chatuge

Sport fishing ratings

Spring sportfish survey results

General information