The Cape Fear River encompasses 9,164 square miles making it the largest river basin contained entirely within North Carolina. According to the 2010 census, the river basin contains over two million people, which is one‐fifth of the state’s population. The upper basin contains rapidly growing cities such as Greensboro, Durham, Chapel Hill and others which contribute urban runoff into the river. The mid and lower Cape Fear basin have extensive confined agricultural feeding operations, also contributing to high levels of nutrients in the river. There are drinking water users throughout the entire basin, including growing cities like Wilmington in the lower basin, who are trying to maximize water resource use.

The US Army Corps of Engineers has multiple projects influencing the Cape Fear River basin, including managing B. Everett Jordan Lake, operating three locks and dams, and dredging. Jordan Lake’s five project purposes are to provide water supply, flood control, water quality, recreation, and fish and wildlife conservation. Jordan Lake was almost immediately impaired for high levels of nutrients, and the State declared it a nutrient sensitive water body the same year that the reservoir was completed. Jordan Lake supplies drinking water to over 300,000 upper basin users.

The three locks and dams were built between 1915 and 1935 to assist commercial traffic up and down the river. But, they are rarely used for large vessels. The locks and dams also support water intakes for cities such as Wilmington and Fayetteville. However, the locks and dams also impede diadromous fish from reaching their historic spawning grounds with commercial fish landings are 87 percent lower than historical estimates over the past two centuries.

To help with fish passage on Lock and Dam 1, the Corps completed a rock ramp fishway in 2012. Through the Section 408 process, modification to USACE Property, partners, including The Nature Conservancy, are assessing the potential for modifying the rock ramp passage, and potential fish passage structures on the other two locks and dams.

The Cape Fear River Basin contains many different aquatic ecosystems, lending itself to a diverse species assemblage including 95 species of commercial and recreational fish, 42 rare aquatic species, and streamside habitat that hosts, at over 2000 years old, the oldest trees east of the Rocky Mountains. Both people and wildlife rely on the Cape Fear, making its water quality and water quantity of the utmost importance.