About The District

Our Mission

Protect the natural resources of Haywood County through education, conservation and preservation.

Technical Assistance offered:

  • Access Road Layout
  • Animal Waste Systems
  • Critical Area Stabilization
  • Diversions
  • Drainage System Design
  • Erosion Control
  • Forms for Wildlife Planting and Tree Seedlings
  • Grassed Waterways and Field Borders
  • Heavy Use Areas
  • No-Till and Minimum-Till
  • Outdoor Classrooms for Schools
  • Pasture and Hayland Management
  • Sediment Control Basin
  • Soil Testing
  • Streambank Stabilization
  • Watershed Planning

About Conservation Districts

The Haywood Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) was chartered on June 18, 1953 and has served Haywood County for over 70 years. The district is one of 96 Soil and Water Conservation Districts in North Carolina. The first Soil and Water Conservation Districts were formed in the 1930s with the first in the nation being the Brown Creek Soil and Water Conservation District in Anson County, NC. Our country owes a debt of gratitude to Dr. Hugh Hammond Bennett, who worked tirelessly to get legislation passed toward forming conservation districts following the devastation by the Dust Bowl. 

A five-member Board of Supervisors governs Haywood SWCD. Soil and water are fundamental to life itself. Many people don’t stop to realize the importance of clean water, nor the value of soil for growing crops and trees, not only to humans, but to all creatures. It can take hundreds of years for only an inch of topsoil to form and virtually no time at all for it to wash away during a heavy rain if it is unprotected or has been disturbed. One place that it can end up, all too often, is in a creek or river where it then affects water quality and damages habitat for fish. 

Soil and water are linked to one another and we depend on both. This is what Haywood SWCD is all about: conserving soil and water through assistance to the public and through education.

Haywood SWCD belongs to the Area I Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts (16 western North Carolina counties), the North Carolina Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts (NCASWCD) and the National Association of Conservation Districts. 

North Carolina Conservation Partnership

Haywood SWCD is a part of the North Carolina Conservation Partnership, which consists of the Division of Soil and Water Conservation (NC Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services), the Natural Resources Conservation Service (USDA), the NC Soil and Water Commission, and the NC Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts. What this means to the public is that federal, state and local programs are all administered through Haywood SWCD.

Partnership Vision Statement

A dynamic partnership committed to quality leadership and customer service for the conservation of our natural resources.


Annual Reports