MountainTrue removes 100 tons of debris from whitewater section of French Broad River

By Liz McGuirl, MountainTrue’s River Cleanup Story Collector

Since early 2025, river stewards have worked to move more than 100 tons of trash from the French Broad River’s most rugged whitewater stretches, with the hopes that the debris would be removed from the banks before the next storm. This month, the job was finally completed.

MountainTrue’s Madison County river cleanup crew and French Broad Riverkeeper staff teamed up with RJ Corman, a railroad services contractor, to complete the largest storm debris removal operation since the Army Corps of Engineers left WNC. Working under access agreements from Norfolk Southern, crews were able to remove 203,728 lbs of flood debris that had been collected and staged along the French Broad River between Redmon Dam and Stackhouse Boat Launch (sections 8 and 9) over the last sixteen months. That amounts to the weight of around 50 average-sized elephants spread over about 10 whitewater river miles in an area with little river access.

“It has been a long and challenging ride for this old warhorse. Certainly many tough days and nights when it seemed we would be looking at the debris for the rest of our lives.”
– Jay Hawthorne (French Broad Crossing)

Jumping into action

The town of Marshall is situated right alongside the French Broad River, with railroad tracks as the sole dividing barrier between the residences, small businesses, outdoor outfitters and rafting companies that lined the streets and the river itself. During Hurricane Helene, the river crested over 27 feet downtown, far beyond the railroad tracks. Many shops were washed downstream, leaving many residents unemployed with a massive mess to clean up. Significant debris from Buncombe County, including thousands of pounds of PVC, was also among the mangled wreckage in the river.

In November 2024, two months after the storm, Fritz Johnson from Blue Heron Outfitters took the first step to cleanup. Armed simply with ambition and a vision, Fritz sent out a call to action to the Madison County French Broad River community. In hopes of keeping heavy machinery out of this beautiful and economically critical section of whitewater, Fritz raised funds to employ local paddlers and raft guides to clean up some of the harder-to-reach sections of river.

For more than 6 months, Fritz’s cleanup crew — led by paddlers Kiana Crosby and Jordan Clark-Brown — worked diligently to dismantle debris piles with their bare hands. Several days per week, they paddled Sections 8 and 9 of the French Broad and separated flood debris from natural (woody) debris, bagged up the trash, and sorted remaining debris into two piles — metal and PVC.

MountainTrue joins the effort

Matt captained a jet boat, allowing the crew to ferry piles previously collected by Fritz’s crew across the river, leaving it near the train tracks for future pick-up.

In September 2025, MountainTrue, now funded by @NCDEQ, was able to assign one team to focus on the Madison County section of the French Broad River, led by team leader Jemima Fliss-Cook.

“I feel like I lost a part of myself in the flood, but am proud to be able to take part in moving forward in advocacy for my rivers and my neighbors.”
– Jemima Fliss-Cook (Madison County Crew Leader)

For sixteen long months, while they worked to remove, pile, and sort through debris, Matt, Jemima, Jordan, and Kiana shared the fear that any future rainstorm could cause the river to rise again, rendering all their hard work over the past year obsolete.

“This whole process with Blue Heron and then with MountainTrue has had a strange sense of anxiety (attached to it).” – Jordan Clark-Brown, who has been part of both cleanup efforts.

Thankfully, RJ Corman swooped in to save the day.

Over the course of two weeks, RJ Corman’s railroad crew made river miracles come true — finally alleviating the “rain-xiety” of not just the Madison County crew members, but residents like Jay Hawthorne who lives along the river near Sandy Bottoms rapid.

Here’s how they did it:

Utilizing Barnard Park as the designated  “dumping zone” (due to its central location between Redmon and Stackhouse), RJ Corman mobilized two large railroad trucks — each with an excavator arm — collecting dozens of debris piles up and down the river. They would fill to capacity, ride the tracks back to Barnard, and dump the debris for the MountainTrue crew to sort.

Recyclables like metal and PVC pipe were set aside from the rest of the debris to reduce the project’s impact on the landfill. Tires were also sorted, then hauled away by On Time Tire Removal.

After 16 months of handling dozens of piles, the project removed:

• 34 dumpsters of debris
• 4 truck loads of tires
• One 11,000-pound gas tank 

This project is a shining example of just how much we can accomplish, how strong and resilient we can truly be when we work together with, and for, our community. 

“If you get a group of highly competent people [together], give them the resources they need and let them loose, great things will happen,”
– Hartwell Carson (Clean Waters Director)

Thank you!

The impact of the project has already made a noticeable difference for local outfitters.

“I’ve worked two commercial trips this (past) weekend, and it was so liberating to not have to explain debris piles again.”
– Jordan Clark-Brown (Madison County Crew)

We couldn’t have done this without the help of our entire French Broad River community, and most notably: Fritz Johnson of Blue Heron Whitewater, French Broad Paddle Trail Manager Jack Henderson, RJ Corman Railroad Services, MT’s Madison County Crew, Trevor of Big Daddy Dumpz, and Rusty of On Time Tire Removal.

“I think it is pretty special that as a team, most of us had at least seen each other across the water before. Most of us have lived here for a long time. It’s a tight community and everybody’s just been working so hard. Working together on this thing that we all really love is pretty special.”
– Kiana Crosby (Madison County Crew)