How do you put a price on a 122-year-old mass of concrete sitting in the middle of a river? The value of Craggy Dam on the French Broad River in Buncombe County is now at the center of a debate over river restoration, flood mitigation, power generation and the future of aging dams across the region.
Built in 1904, the dam in Woodfin supplies a portion of the energy used by its owner, the Buncombe County Metropolitan Sewerage District, to power a portion of its wastewater treatment facility.
In 2022 a group of environmental organizations known as the Craggy Coalition approached the MSD to discuss the removal of the dam, which is 13-foot-high and nearly two football fields long.
The public utility lead staff member, however, remains lukewarm about the possibility. MSD General Manager Tom Hartye told Carolina Public Press that operating the dam “reduces our carbon footprint by 45% and saves the ratepayers energy costs for the treatment of wastewater,” he said, adding that until there’s a viable plan for its removal, razing the dam is off the table.
The Craggy Coalition is proposing a third-party purchase the structure at a fair market value, remove it, and ultimately transfer the restored site to public ownership.
A viable plan may ultimately hinge on a single question: what’s it worth?
Craggy Dam questions
Craggy Dam is one in an expansive effort to target and remove obsolete and aging dams in Western North Carolina and throughout the country. According to American River’s Southeast Conservation Director Erin McCombs, roughly 27,000 dams throughout North Carolina, many of which are no longer serving a purpose. American Rivers is a leader in the movement to remove dams and has a lofty goal to raze 30,000 dams by 2050. In 2024, 108 dams were removed nationwide.
The nonprofit Mountain Valleys Resource Conservation and Development is pursuing the removal of the next dam downstream on the French Broad River, the Capitola Dam near Marshall in Madison County. They are working on a feasibility study in cooperation with the French Broad Electric Membership Corporation. Altogether, three dams are in place on the river in North Carolina.
“Removing a dam is the fastest way to bring a river back to life” by allowing sediment to spread normally and allowing insects, invertebrates, fish and other aquatic animals to flourish, McCombs said.
A free-flowing French Broad River could also eliminate safety hazards associated with dams, and boost the local recreation economy by opening 3.5 miles of whitewater and expanding opportunities for river access, tourism and riverfront activity.
River advocate and former City of Asheville vice mayor Marc Hunt said the most compelling benefit of removing the Craggy Dam is reduced flood impact.
”This is the most important thing we might do in our lifetimes to support the health of the French Broad and what the river means to our community,” Hunt said. “It’s time to move on and adapt to the new reality that our rivers should flow freely.”
But removing a dam is technically complex and costly. American rivers commissioned a study by the consulting firm Stantec to determine whether removal of Craggy Dam is environmentally and economically viable. The report estimated that fully removing Craggy Dam and its associated hydropower facilities could cost between $6.3 and $8.7 million.
In addition to steep costs, its removal requires cooperation by the dam’s owner, the MSD.
The Hatch report
The MSD is a nonprofit, publicly-owned utility created in 1962 by the North Carolina State Stream Sanitation Committee in order to operate facilities to treat and dispose of raw sewage and industrial wastewaters. Its governing board includes 14 members appointed by Buncombe County and municipalities served by the utility.
In 1963, the MAD purchased Craggy Dam, originally built to power a textile mill. MSD discontinued electrical operations until 1984, when the utility invested in improvements allowing the dam to again generate hydroelectricity.
Aging infrastructure and recent operational outages prompted MSD to consider capital repairs to extend the dam’s life. Last year, MSD hired Hatch Ltd., an international engineering consultancy, to develop a capital improvement plan known as the “Hatch report” which included projections of major maintenance and investment costs.
At the Feb. 18, 2026, MSD board meeting, Hartye and MSD Director of Engineering Hunter Carson presented a summary of the Hatch report and detailed their concerns with American Rivers’ commissioned study of the dam removal.
The presentation on Craggy Dam was preceded by public comments from members of the coalition, including McCombs.
Hartye and Carson stressed the physical complications of dam removal, its impact on the MSD’s existing infrastructure, the environmental impact of relying on the energy grid, and costs to ratepayers. The presentation included an estimate from Greensboro-based demolition contractor D.H. Griffin Companies, projecting a cost of $20 million to remove the structure, more than double the Craggy Coalition’s estimate.
McCombs questioned D.H. Griffin’s experience with dam removals.
“In our experience, dam removal requires specific knowledge and expertise,” she said. “The more uncertainty or lack of information in a construction project typically inflates the cost to account for increased risk.”
Stantec, which has experience with complex dam removal projects, provided the cost estimate to American Rivers and is included on their pre-qualified list of dam removal contractors.
A slide during the presentation outlined the dam’s future estimated net cash flow. The Hatch report calculated a net cash flow of $17.1 million dollars based on 30 years of future cash flow less the expenses of operating and improving the dam. The calculation included major maintenance and facilities costs, labor, equipment, and materials to operate the Craggy Dam facility.
A decision to retire assets such as Craggy Dam is guided by the MSD’s bond obligations in order to protect ratepayers and bondholders, Hartye said. Currently the MSD is investing $771 million in capital wastewater improvements, mostly bond-funded, to provide cleaner water and better service.
Among Hartye’s recommendations to the MSD board was to gather sufficient information and to hire a consultant to determine a fair value of the dam before there is public engagement about the structure’s future.
MSD board member Gwen Whistler said the Craggy Coalitions’s and MSD’s numbers are “pretty far apart” and added that she would want any consultant chosen to be approved by both parties.
Hartye told CPP that he will ask the board to approve a proposal from Raftelis Inc. to provide a dam valuation study at the next meeting. He also criticized American Rivers, saying they’ve ignored MSD’s concerns with portions of the Stantec study, instead choosing to “engage politicians and the press.”
Discounting net value of Craggy Dam
A dam’s value isn’t just the concrete and steel; it’s a complicated mix of potential revenue, costs, risks, and public interest. For instance, measuring the ecological benefits of a dam are difficult to pinpoint. That’s why buyers and utilities often spend months or years trying to agree on a fair price.
McCombs said a commissioned valuation must be independent, technically credible, widely trusted, and commissioned jointly by the MSD and the Craggy Coalition.
In the meantime, the Craggy Coalition asked energy economist Stratford Douglas, a retired West Virginia University faculty member, to analyze the Hatch report’s estimated future net cash flow.
Douglas said $17.1 million is overstated because it doesn’t properly “discount” the values to account for the uncertainty and timing of future cash flows around Craggy Dam.
Discounting future cash flows using standard financial techniques converts distant costs and benefits into their present-day equivalents for comparison. The greater the risk associated with future values, the lower the present-day value.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty with future cash flows,” Douglas said. “There could be massive repairs caused by large weather events and there are reasons to think that the future output will not be what it has been in the past.”
For example, the hydro power facility is not able to run at 100% capacity when the French Broad is at low levels, thus more persistent droughts caused by a warming climate, for example, could impact future revenue. The cost estimates in the Hatch report were prepared to accuracies of -30% to +50%.
Douglas estimated the value of the dam’s future net cash flow at $3 million to $6 million using a range of discount rates to portray different levels of future risk. Douglas explained that an asset’s value is usually determined from the net benefits that it’s projected to deliver, adjusted for risk and uncertainty.
“I’m not suggesting any kind of incompetence or malfeasance on the part of Hatch or the MSD. Like most entities, they would like to continue operating in a way that they’re familiar with. That’s totally understandable.” he said. “All I did was discount their numbers.”
Hartye told CPP in an email that the Hatch report is not an estimate of the value of Craggy Dam: “This is primarily an engineering report that assesses future capital and maintenance needs for the next 30 years.” He also pointed out that the Hatch report included an expected cash flow analysis based on the annual operating expenses and revenues from its hydroelectric function calculating a new present value of $2.05 million discounted at 6%.
Transparent and independent
While dams seldom change owners, there’s precedent. In 2019, Duke Energy sold five dams located in the Carolinas to Northbrook Energy for $4.75 million. Among them was the Ela Dam on the Oconaluftee River in Swain County. Northbrook Energy has since sold the dam for $1 to Mainspring Conservation Trust to facilitate its removal.
McCombs hopes that whatever the future of the dam, the process leading to a decision is transparent and independent.
“It seems like the MSD is only viewing the French Broad River as a source of power for them,” she said. “At the end of the day we’re focused on getting to a fair sale price to be able to realize the benefits of removal. Rate payers will be made whole and MSD won’t have to operate this dam anymore.”
McCombs requested a place on the agenda of the MSD’s next governing board meeting on Wednesday March 18. She plans to advocate that the MSD explore the possibility of removal; freeze capital expenditures on the hydro facility until a decision is made; and establish a transparent evaluation process to understand the full range of public benefits and tradeoffs of removal.
CPP reached out to several members of the governing board including Asheville resident Chris Pelly. “I support removal of the dam although, as an MSD board member, I have to consider its interests too,” he said. “I believe we’ll eventually get there, but need for the process to play out.”
Convincing Hartye may, however, be a high hurdle.
“What is incredible is how hydropower is dismissed now that there’s going to be a new kayak park (in the stream),” he wrote to CPP.
Hunt is a driving force of Taylor’s Wave, which will be owned and operated by the Town of Woodfin once construction is complete. Eliminating Craggy Dam, he said, means MSD must rely on power from the electricity grid.
“We are looking at about 2.3 times the amount of greenhouse gas production. Hydroelectric aligns with city and county goals to meet 100% renewable by 2030,” Hartye said. “Maintaining the hydro certainly aligns with those goals. Reliance on additional grid power does not.”
Carolina Public Press is an independent, in-depth and investigative nonprofit news service for North Carolina.