This coverage is made possible through a partnership between BPR and Grist, a nonprofit environmental media organization.
For months now, an unsightly and dangerous snarl of garbage has laid in the rivers and streams of Western North Carolina. The remains of homes and peoples’ livelihoods are strewn along the banks, entangled with with plastic and branches.
On a sunny afternoon, Lisa Raleigh, director of nonprofit river advocacy organization Riverlink, stood on a public walkway in the River Arts District, pointing out where the debris still lays, discarded in the French Broad River by Hurricane Helene.
“It's just sort of endless destruction on the east bank,” she said, pointing across the river at where trees and non-organic debris have fallen in the water.
Debris in the riverways can cause potential flood hazards, Raleigh said. Trash and excessive debris can form artificial dams as things wash downstream and get stuck in shallow areas or beneath bridges.
Jonathan Stamper, river cleanup coordinator with MountainTrue, organizes volunteer cleanups across the region and in the French Broad. Stamper, an avid rafter and a former owner of a small river outfitting company, said vital clear waterways are not only for the health of the river, but for the continued vibrancy of Western North Carolina tourism.
”We're talking about a lot of folks that might not have jobs this summer,” Stamper said. “It's not just the rafting and the kayaking, it's the fishing guides.”
Stamper said the debris is a safety hazard for boats. Volunteers rely on access being granted by property owners along the French Broad riverbank so that they can clean up the debris.
MountainTrue is seeking volunteers for most weekends to help with clean-up. The organization regularly tests the water to make sure it’s safe, and provides personal protective equipment like gloves and N-95 masks for volunteers to use as they work.
A lot of the garbage – homes, twisted metal – is too dangerous for volunteers to remove so riverkeepers report those larger pieces to the county.
How debris removal works
Volunteers are just one part of the clean-up effort. This week, the Army Corps of Engineers and a contractor, AshBritt, began removing debris from waterways in Buncombe and Polk counties. Counties may also request FEMA and state support to pay contractors for debris removal.
Work is beginning in Swannanoa, Azalea Park, and Moffatt Road, according to Buncombe County officials. Crews will be removing large debris - everything from boats to cars to refrigerators to parts of houses.
The process is carefully designed to minimize environmental impact, Solid Waste Director Dane Pederson said at the Buncombe County briefing this week.
“They don’t just go off the bank anywhere they want to go,” Pederson said. “They’ve got a specific entrance and exit point so they protect the bank where they’re going in and out.”
County officials and disaster response agencies say waterway and private property debris removal is complex and requires a lot of cooperation.
“We are excited to be at the point when we are getting equipment out. There are a lot of people who worked very hard for months now,” said Dave Connolly, public affairs chief with Wilmington District USACE, in a statement.
In an interview, Pederson acknowledged a common concern: the slow pace of cleanup. The complexity of the work slowed it down, and staff spent the months since the storm ensuring that more damage isn’t done over the course of the cleanup, Pederson said.
“The locations have to be reviewed for environmental, historical and cultural culturally sensitive areas and that's to help ensure that the cleanup process does not cause harm to endangered species or historical and cultural artifacts.” Multiple agencies, including FEMA’s Environmental and Historic Preservation division, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Environmental Quality, are involved in the review.
Pederson estimates there is 1.5 million cubic yards of debris in Buncombe’s waterways, and 10 million total cubic yards of debris on land.
After debris is collected, vegetation is separated from mud and human-made debris, Army Corps spokesperson Stacey Reese explained to BPR. Vegetation goes to a landfill in Spruce Pine while mud, soil, and silt go to Johnson City. Construction and other similar materials go to Lenoir from McDowell County and Enoree, a small, South Carolina town.
President Donald Trump has been critical of recovery efforts in Western North Carolina and promised to ease bureaucratic red tape to speed up processes such as infrastructure rebuilding.
According to the USACE, regulations and permitting requirements pertaining to debris have not changed since the Trump administration started.
“Each site goes through the DEQ permitting process,” Reese said in an email. To minimize environmental impact, crews employ including soil testing, low-pressure tires on heavy equipment, and biodegradable fluids.
The Army Corps and Ashbritt are using specialized machinery and told reporters they're working on a four-month timeline for the region. The goal is to complete all waterway debris removal activities by the first of June.
A greener future also means a less flood-prone future, experts say
Planting more trees may be essential to build regional flood resilience, according to Raleigh, of Riverlink.
“We have a lot of infrastructure that is actually falling in the river due to these heavily eroded and damaged banks,” Raleigh said. “Where the flood water scoured the stream banks, they're devoid of any vegetation at all and the bank is falling in.”
Riparian buffer zones - tracts of native trees and plants next to waterways - can absorb rainfall and keep debris from being swept into rivers and streams.
“For our stretches of river that have intact riparian zones, we saw very little bank loss,” Raleigh said. “But when we have rivers that are interfacing with centuries of development and we lost our riparian zones, those banks become super vulnerable.”
Raleigh says proper riparian zones can also decrease the speed and ferocity of flooding in the future.
The United States Department of Agriculture’s Emergency Watershed Protection Program has funding to support local governments in flood mitigation and replanting for the future. The program could be on the chopping block in current federal funding discussions.
Repairing riverbanks can require $200 to $600 per square foot, Raleigh said. The process is not only expensive, but it is difficult to put back together once it’s been harmed.
“In a perfect world, 100 plus years ago, we would have never diminished the riparian zone because it's way harder to put back,” she said.
As the climate warms, this region is projected to see increased extreme rainfall over the coming century, but there is still opportunity to make rivers less vulnerable to its worst effects.
Raleigh said hope remains. “This river was incredibly neglected and defined by industry and really degraded and a lot of effort and care has gone into it and it's come incredibly far.”
Laura Hackett contributed to this report.
