Action Alert: Delivering on Goals Requires Stregthening Recommendations

MountainTrue has significant concerns about the latest draft of the 2045 Henderson County Comprehensive Plan. While much of the document and its goals reflect the priorities of our community, many plan recommendations are now undermined by weak or ambiguous language.

MountainTrue staff and volunteers have analyzed the current draft and prepared the following open letter — which has been shared with County Commissioners by MountainTrue’s Southern Regional Director, Nancy Díaz. MountainTrue urges Henderson County residents to urge County Commissioners to adopt stronger recommendations, fix critical flaws with the suitability maps, and formulate an implementation plan.

What you can do:

Write an email to the Commissioners about your concerns

David Hill – davidhill@hendersoncountync.gov
William Lapsley – wlapsley@hendersoncountync.gov
Rebecca McCall – rmccall@hendersoncountync.gov
Mike Edney – jmedney@hendersoncountync.gov
Daniel Andreotta – dandreotta@hendersoncountync.gov

Attend an upcoming County Commissioners meeting — click here to view the meeting calendar.

Submit a letter to the editor (LTE) of the Times News about your concerns.

LTE guidelines:
A 200-word count maximum.
The deadline for letters each week is noon on Wednesday.
The best email to send letters to is tnletters@blueridgenow.com.
Please include your address and phone number with your signature.

Dear Henderson County Commissioners:

On December 1, the Planning Board approved, with no opportunity for public input, a catalog of edits undermining and further weakening the County’s ability to meet its own goals. In addition, the current Suitability Maps are in conflict with the expressed goals of the plan. MountainTrue urges Henderson County Commissioners to revise the December draft — which doesn’t fully address the priorities of County residents as reflected in the County’s own public survey — by reverting to the earlier language of the 2045 Comprehensive Plan.

Through the County’s public survey, public input meetings, and hearings, Henderson County residents have made our priorities clear: protecting open spaces and forests, preserving farmland, and conserving unique natural areas. Residents also showed strong desires to expand access to broadband internet, improve water quality; reduce vulnerability to wildfires, flooding, and landslides; expand sidewalks, bike lanes, and greenways; and increase energy efficiency.

While the County deserves praise for passing a resolution to start conversations with the City of Hendersonville toward establishing a joint water and sewer commission, the Comprehensive Planning process itself has been less than ideal. Overall, the goals of the current plan are good, and the November draft of the Comprehensive Plan laid out sensible recommendations. However, the latest edits proposed by the Planning Board will make meeting the plan’s goals more difficult.

Weakening the Hand of the County
One of the most exciting ideas to come from the current planning process is the establishment of a preservation program to establish agricultural conservation easements. On page 62, under Goal 2 (Protect and Conserve Rural Character and Agriculture), the Planning Board revised a recommendation (Rec. 2.2.B) from “creating” to merely “consider the creation” of such a fund. The “consideration” of a farmland preservation fund was proposed in the last Comprehensive Plan. It’s time for the County to adopt more ambitious and committed wording.

On page 67, under Goal 3 (Improve Resiliency of the Natural and Built Environment), the Planning Board ignores safety concerns when it comes to limiting development above and below hazardous steep slopes, demoting a recommendation (Rec 3.3.A) from “encourage the preservation of open space and conservation areas in and around areas with a high potential for landslides” to just “consider encouraging.” The County Commissioners should “encourage” at the very least and would do better by establishing a strong steep slopes construction code.

On page 68, Rec. 3.4.D the Planning Board replaced “remove regulatory barriers […] for green infrastructure projects” with only the consideration of such regulatory barriers, which is too weak. Furthermore, a definition of Green Infrastructure is missing from the glossary. County Commissioners should adopt this definition: Green infrastructure is a network of natural and built green spaces that provide environmental, economic, and social benefits. It includes green spaces such as parks, trees, urban forests, streetscapes, green roofs and green walls, rain gardens, and more. These green spaces help to mitigate the effects of urbanization, protect ecosystems, reduce pollution, and improve public health.

On page 68, the imperative (Rec. 3.3.G) to “adopt” best practice design standards for new construction within the Wildland Urban Interface” was downgraded to an “encouragement.” On page 72, in the second paragraph for the description of Goal 4 (Connectivity), multimodal transportation funding is unnecessarily limited to the Utility Service Area. The County is promoting Greenways as alternative routes for transportation and to connect communities. This means building greenways not just within one Utility Service Area but also between them — such as Edneyville to Hendersonville. In each of these instances, County Commissioners should restore the more assertive language of the November draft and consider further strengthening the recommendations.

Turning a Blind Eye Toward Real-World Challenges
At their December 1 meeting, the Planning Board excised from the Comprehensive Plan the sole mention of climate change. The region is experiencing more frequent, extreme rain events — what used to be classified as “100-year floods” are now happening every five or ten years. At the other extreme, when droughts do occur, they are expected to be hotter and longer, increasing the risks of a repeat of the destructive wildfires of 2016 — which forced the evacuation of 1,000 people in the areas of Bat Cave, Chimney Rock, and Lake Lure.

Shifting climatic conditions put our farmers and their ability to grow food at risk, degrade our water quality, and negatively impact our tourism and outdoor recreation economy, yet, the Planning Board ignores these risks with the deletion of a sentence acknowledging these basic realities. The County should restore the language of the prior draft, which read, “As the frequency of extreme weather events increases, flooding, landslides, and drought-induced fires are likely to become a more regular occurrence.” Additionally, we suggest adding a sentence to this section clearly stating that “The County will develop policies and procedures that will improve the resiliency of the County to wildfires, flooding, and landslides.” (Coinciding with 29% of the respondents of the survey (p.144)

In some ways, the draft Comprehensive Plan is proactive when it comes to our changing climate realities. However, in critical areas, the changes made by the Planning Board unnecessarily limit the County’s ability to mitigate and adapt. For example, the Planning Board deleted a recommendation 2.2.D (page 62 in the November draft) that read, “Consider the introduction of Smart Solar programs throughout the County to encourage solar energy development and safeguard farmland” and recommendation 4.6.A-C (page 74 in the November draft) that read “Support the use of electric vehicles to reduce air pollution and dependency on fossil fuels.” Advancements to renewable energy, and more specifically solar panel and battery technology, have made green energy cheaper, cleaner, and more reliable than fossil fuels. To save on energy costs, the County should restore the recommendation to introduce Smart Solar programs, and in light of a recent projection (Bloomberg) that at least half of all passenger cars sold in the US will be electric vehicles by 2030, we would urge the Commissioners to restore the full text of these deleted sections.

Fixing Critical Flaws to the Suitability Maps
There are major flaws with the proposed Commercial and Industrial Suitability Maps found in the draft appendix of the Henderson Comprehensive Plan. These maps appear to conflict with the accompanying Plan Maps, as well as the Comp Plan’s stated goals and public input. Despite strong support for the preservation of open space and working farmlands, the designated suitable areas include sensitive natural areas, prime farmland, and key transition zones between protected lands and low-density residential areas. It appears that the map’s designers did not appropriately weigh for the following criteria: Biodiversity and Habitat Value, Agricultural Lands, Prime Farmland Soils, Wildfire Threat, Landslide Threat, or Flooding Threat.

While we understand that the Suitability Maps are not authoritative, they will certainly be cited by developers looking to build commercial or industrial projects within the areas highlighted as suitable. In addition, these maps will serve as guideposts for future Planning Board members and County Commissioners, which could influence land-use policy decisions. Therefore, it is important that these maps are accurate and reflect the goals and values stated within the Comprehensive Plan. The staff and their consultant should redraw the Industrial and Commercial Suitability maps and adjust the weighting to incorporate values expressed in the Comprehensive Plan’s own goals — namely, the preservation of farmlands and the protection of open space.

Furthermore, these flawed maps are granted an unwarranted level of importance by the Planning Board in its December revisions to the first Outcome on page 35. The plan’s outcomes are “established based on stakeholder and citizen feedback” (page 54) and are the bedrock upon which goals, recommendations, and actions were subsequently developed. All three outcomes were included without change in every version of the plan since the September 9, 2022 draft — until the Planning Board rewrote Outcome 1 in December.

The prior Outcome 1 reads, “Make intentional land use decisions that protect agriculture, rural character, and natural resources while strategically guiding development.” This was changed to “Make intentional land use decisions that preserve agriculture, rural character, and natural resources with the Future Land Use Map as a guide” (pages 35 and 56) This elevated the Future Land Use Map above the important policies articulated in the Comprehensive Plan and is in direct contradiction to the intent expressed in every draft (including the current one) that “the map and associated policies are meant to guide growth and development as well as land use regulations in the County planning jurisdiction …” (page 40, emphasis added). Rather than altering a high-level outcome so late in the planning process, we suggest that the language in prior drafts be restored.

Erasure & Exclusionary Language
In the “History of the County” section on page 12, the Planning Board has removed a reference to the Cherokee and Catawba and to the “forcible relocation” of Native Americans via the Trail of Tears. As a result, the Planning Board has taken an acknowledgment of a shameful chapter in our nation’s history and erased it completely. While intentions may not have been to hide, MountainTrue would not want the County to appear to be obscuring this part of our history. We encourage the County to reach out to the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians and other representatives of Native American peoples to adopt language that is accurate and respectful to our shared history.

Further down on page 12, the Planning Board suggests new language stating that “To plan for the future, the County must acknowledge its past and current strengths, in order to plan for the best possible future development of the County for its citizens.” There is no reason to circumscribe the beneficiaries of this plan to County citizens. There are many people who have a vested interest in the future of the County, including part-time residents, visitors, commuting workers, medical patients, and tax-paying lawful permanent residents. MountainTrue recommends just ending the sentence with the word “County.”

Looking Ahead to Implementation
In summary, while many of these changes may seem minor, we believe that, in this case, the devil really is in the details. The 2045 Comprehensive Plan is meant to serve as a long-range vision for future growth and development for Henderson County. As such, it is the responsibility of the County Commissioners to ensure that the goals reflect the priorities and desires of the people who live and work in Henderson County and the voters who elected them to office.

Through extensive public outreach and the County’s own community survey, those priorities are clear and largely reflected in much of the narrative and goals laid down in the Comprehensive Plan. Unfortunately, the December edits proposed by the Planning Board seem specifically designed to remove any sense of urgency or accountability and make the plan harder to implement.

The Comprehensive Plan still lacks an Implementation Section, which the Planning Board has assured the public can be adopted even after the Plan is voted on and approved by the County Commission. Clearly identifying what is to be done, by whom, and by what time is critical to turning the hopes and aspirations of the County residents into reality in a transparent and effective way. While MountainTrue continues to advocate for the inclusion of a well-thought-through implementation process, the lack of an Implementation Section underscores the importance of getting the details and recommendations right now.

Sincerely,

Nancy Díaz
Southern Regional Director, MountainTrue

MountainTrue Participates in Waterkeeper Alliance PFAS Study

Study shows widespread contamination of surface waters, though relatively low levels of PFAS in WNC.

MountainTrue’s Watauga, Green, and Broad Riverkeepers participated in a recently released, groundbreaking new study of cancer-causing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) contamination across a select subset of U.S. surface waters. The study found that PFAS pollution is widespread. In samples collected from 114 waterways across the country, 83% contained at least one type of PFAS — substances widely linked to serious public health and environmental impacts.

Since the 1950s, PFAS have been widely used in manufacturing and are found in many consumer, commercial, and industrial products. Often referred to as “forever chemicals,” PFAS do not break down over time. Instead, these dangerous chemicals accumulate in people, wildlife, and the environment. As a result, PFAS have been found in surface water, air, soil, food, and many commercial materials.

“These dangerous chemicals are an emerging threat throughout our country. Here in Western North Carolina, we’ve documented relatively low levels of PFAS contamination,” explains Broad Riverkeeper David Caldwell, “we have more work to do to identify sources of PFAS pollution, but often increased levels are documented downstream of industry, landfills, and wastewater treatment plants.”

MountainTrue’s Riverkeepers collected water samples upstream and downstream of wastewater treatment plants on the Watauga River and Green River and an industrial landfill on the Broad River. The results showed generally low levels of PFAS contamination throughout the mountain region compared to samples collected in the eastern part of the state. Sampling conducted by the Broad Riverkeeper found no detectable PFAS upstream of the Cleveland County landfill and the presence of four PFAS varieties downstream (download the sampling results for the Broad River). The Watauga Riverkeeper found low levels of two varieties of PFAS upstream from the Jimmy Smith Wastewater Treatment Facility and higher levels and three additional PFAS varieties downstream (download the results for the Watauga River). The Green Riverkeeper found no detectable PFAS upstream of the Columbus Wastewater Treatment Plant and found low levels of three varieties of PFAS downstream in White Oak Creek (download the results for the Green River).

“This is a wakeup call for our region,” explains Watauga Riverkeeper Andy Hill. “But we have more work to do. MountainTrue and Waterkeepers Carolina are conducting additional sampling throughout our region and the state, and we will provide a more detailed analysis of PFAS contamination of local waterways.”

A total of 113 Waterkeepers across the country collected samples from 114 waterways across 34 states and the District of Columbia (D.C.). Independent analysis indicates widespread contamination, with 94 participating Waterkeeper groups confirming the presence of PFAS in their waterways. Waterways in 29 states and D.C. were found to be contaminated by at least one, but most frequently, many revealed the presence of up to 35 different PFAS compounds.

In some places, like creeks connected to the Potomac River in Maryland, the Lower Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania, and the Niagara River in New York, the level of contamination is thousands to hundreds of thousands of times higher than what experts say is safe for drinking water. An estimated 65% of Americans source their drinking water from surface waters similar to those sampled. While the state of North Carolina has done some testing of drinking intakes, additional data is needed. It is important to note that locally in Western North Carolina, we do not suspect a threat to drinking water supplies based on current evidence.

Scientific studies increasingly link these toxic chemicals to serious health conditions such as cancer, liver and kidney disease, reproductive issues, immunodeficiencies, and hormonal disruptions. Despite serious health risks, there are currently no universal, science-based limits on the various PFAS chemicals in the United States. For many PFAS chemicals, the EPA has not even set a health advisory limit that would give the public a baseline to determine what amount of PFAS is unhealthy in drinking water. In most cases, the EPA is not doing adequate monitoring for these chemicals, which is why these findings are so unique and important.

This data plainly demonstrates that Congress and EPA must act with urgency to control persistent PFAS contamination across the country. The current lack of oversight puts the health and safety of communities and ecosystems across the nation at risk and results in costly cleanup and treatment activities to remove PFAS contamination after it has occurred. To learn more, visit waterkeeper.org/pfas.

2022 Volunteer of the Year and Esther Cunningham Award Winners

Every year, MountainTrue recognizes five individuals from across the Southern Blue Ridge as our regional Volunteer of the Year and Esther Cunningham award winners. We look forward to celebrating these exceptional MountainTrue volunteers at our 40th Anniversary Celebration on October 12, 2022:

High Country Volunteer of the Year: Hayden Cheek

Hayden (pictured above) works at a local fly shop in Boone, NC. He’s an excellent angler and guide, and he often goes above and beyond to take care of his local waterways. His practice of giving back and leaving our rivers and woods better than he finds them permeates his friendships, work relationships, and his career. He’s a consistent water quality volunteer with our High Country water quality team and his impact is being passed on to those fortunate enough to spend time with him on the trail or in the river. Thanks so much for all you do, Hayden!

Central Region Volunteer of the Year: Jim Clark

Jim Clark has been helping us clean up the French Broad River for years. He’s been a Swim Guide volunteer for nearly ten years and has been a part of our microplastics sampling team from the very beginning. The data he’s gathered at Pearson Bridge has helped to get the new Real-Time E. coli Estimator (created in partnership with NCDEQ) up and running. He’s gone out of his way to keep trash out of the river, including lugging dozens of heavy, muddy tires out of its reach. Thanks for all your hard work to make the river a better place, Jim!

Western Region Volunteer of the Year: Stacey Cassedy

This year, Stacey has volunteered with both of our Adopt-A-Stream water quality monitoring programs (water chemistry and E. coli) and our Swim Guide program. Stacey’s unwavering dedication to our weekly Swim Guide sampling program helped many folks from across the Western Region know where it was safe to swim this summer! When her sampling site failed for the first time in August, she returned to resample and continued to check and photograph the beach for several additional days to monitor the source of the pollution: goose droppings! Stacey has offered to help with festival tabling events and is interested in doing anything needed to help with MountainTrue’s mission, particularly in the water quality program area. She’s a true super volunteer!

Southern Region Volunteer of the Year: Don Cooper

When Don learned about high bacteria levels in his community’s local waterways, he sprung to action and rallied the support of his fellow Rotarians. With his leadership, dozens of volunteers collected hundreds of water samples from streams in and around Hendersonville over the last several years. The data generated from his efforts helped us isolate the sources of bacteria pollution and direct our advocacy resources in the right direction to make meaningful change for water quality and public health. Thank you so much for your leadership, Don!

The 2022 Esther Cunningham Award Winner: Grady Nance

This award is given each year in honor of one of our organization’s founders, Esther Cunningham. Esther bravely stood in the face of opposition, rallied her community to stand with her, and tirelessly fought to protect and defend the forests of Western North Carolina.

Grady and his wife, Kathleen, have been MountainTrue members since 2015. In that time, Grady has repeatedly stepped up to support MountainTrue and our region in a number of ways. Grady spent his career in the electric utility industry and has been a crucial resource to our energy-focused work, especially as we were working both in opposition to and in partnership with Duke Energy. Grady also served on the Henderson County Environmental Advisory Committee for several years, pushing the county to do more in terms of energy efficiency and renewable energy. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Grady has served on MountainTrue’s board as our treasurer since 2019. He has acted more like a CFO than just a board member and has been enormously helpful as our budget and the complexity of our budgeting have grown. Grady also says yes to every request we make of him. He has been a thoughtful, conscientious, and diligent board member and treasurer, and we will miss him terribly when he rolls off the board at the end of this year. Because of his commitment and service to MountainTrue and his dedication to the environment, we are pleased to award him with the 2022 Esther Cunningham Award.

Real-Time E. coli estimates for the French Broad River at Pearson Bridge available on new website from MountainTrue and NC DEQ

MountainTrue has partnered with the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) and the Pigeon River Fund to create a new website that provides the public with real-time water quality estimates at Pearson Bridge on the French Broad River in Asheville, NC. The website combines existing technology and new mathematical modeling to estimate E. coli conditions in real time.

The modeling correlates water turbidity data provided by the U.S. Geological Survey with MountainTrue’s and DEQ’s E. coli data at Pearson Bridge. The French Broad River at Pearson Bridge is now one of the few places in the country to have a real-time E. coli estimate modeling system.

“The goals of the WNC Recreational Monitoring program are to empower and enhance the existing community of environmental organizations already monitoring water quality in WNC, while expanding the Department of Environmental Quality’s analytical abilities to shorten the turnaround time in E. coli analyses and further refine risks associated with elevated bacteria levels,” said Landon Davidson, Division of Water Resources Regional Manager. “Near real-time calculations of bacteria levels are valuable to users because rapid changes in river conditions can increase bacteria levels significantly.” For more information on the State’s WNC Recreational Water Quality program, visit the DEQ website.

French Broad Riverkeeper Hartwell Carson explains, “Summer is when river recreation is most popular, but it’s also when afternoon thunderstorms can roll in, cause significant runoff and drastically change water quality. This new technology helps eliminate that uncertainty by providing the public with real-time estimated bacteria levels so that they can make informed decisions about whether or how to spend time on the river.”

The French Broad River Watershed is one of the most popular water-based recreation areas in North Carolina. On any given warm day, the French Broad Watershed hosts thousands of tubers, swimmers, canoers, kayakers, anglers, and whitewater boaters. Recreators frequently wonder how clean the river is and if it’s safe to swim or paddle.

As part of its existing Swim Guide program, MountainTrue publishes E. coli data each week from May to September on the Swim Guide platform. MountainTrue utilizes the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)-approved IDEXX method for collecting and analyzing water samples and compares the results against the safe standard for health determined by the EPA.

MountainTrue samples for E. coli because it’s the best indicator for the presence of microbes that pose threats to human health, such as Cryptosporidium, Giardia, Shigella, and norovirus. Heavy rains and storms often result in spikes in E. coli contamination, increasing the risk to human health. Contact with or consumption of contaminated water can cause gastrointestinal illness, skin, ear, respiratory, eye, neurologic, and wound infections. The most commonly reported symptoms are stomach cramps, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, and low-grade fever.

While the Swim Guide program provides high-quality data, it suffers from a time lag, as E. coli samples take 18-24 hours to incubate. Water quality can vary significantly from week to week or even day to day. E. coli levels can change quickly with heavy rains, as stormwater triggers runoff from agriculture, sewer overflows, and failed septic systems. Swim Guide data taken from MountainTrue’s Pearson Bridge sampling site over the past month illustrates this problem. During a relatively dry period in June, E. coli levels at Pearson Bridge were well below the safe standard set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). July’s heavy thunderstorms have caused E. coli levels at Pearson Bridge to spike significantly, including being over 25 times the EPA’s safe standard on July 13.

As our mountain region experiences increased high-intensity rain events as a symptom of climate change, developing a model that provides E. coli estimates to the public is important. The French Broad Riverkeeper says MountainTrue and DEQ want folks to have the resources they need to make more informed decisions about when and how to recreate the French Broad River. Now, this will be possible thanks to the real-time E. coli estimator model and the USGS Pearson Bridge turbidity gage data on which it is based.

These real-time estimates will also help the French Broad Riverkeeper and DEQ track sources of pollution as they continue working together to bring about a cleaner French Broad River. Visit frenchbroadwaterquality.com to view results in real time. Visit theswimguide.org/affiliates/french-broad-riverkeeper/ to view MountainTrue’s weekly Swim Guide results from across the French Broad River Watershed.

Sewage Spill in the Broad River? Check the Classifieds!

Check the Classifieds!

Disclaimer: this is not a sewage spill warning!

Thankfully, no recent sewage spills have been reported in the Broad River. Last week’s Broad Riverkeeper social media posts about high bacteria levels in the Broad got some folks wondering about bacteria levels and sewage spills. Heavy rainfall does cause E. coli levels in the Broad to rise, and sewage spills do occasionally occur after very heavy rain events. However, higher E. coli levels do not always signify a sewage spill.

In the event of a sewage spill, state law requires the wastewater treatment plant or municipality to inform the local public by placing a classified ad in a local printed newspaper.

Stay safe and informed on your river adventures.

This classified ad was printed in the Shelby Star on October 13, 2018, after nearly 45,000 gallons of untreated wastewater were discharged into the Second Broad River on October 11. The wastewater treatment plant was not required to directly notify your Broad Riverkeeper, the Broad River Greenway, or downstream neighbors. The treatment plant was also not required to place any signage downstream where folks might be accessing the river.

The protocol is an antiquated system for public notification of potentially dangerous pollution events. NC riverkeepers are urging the state to upgrade this system by utilizing more current communication methods like social media posts, email and text alerts, or a website. We’ll keep working to bring about a better system, but until then, make sure you know where to find potential future sewage spill notices in your local paper.

Halfway Through Swim Guide Season 2022 – Watauga Riverkeeper

Watauga Riverkeeper Report:

Swim Guide Season 2022

Watauga Riverkeeper on Swim Guide

Support our Swim Guide Program

We’re officially halfway through this year’s Swim Guide season!

Scroll on and check out these handy graphics to learn more about our High Country E. coli facts and figures and find out which Watauga Riverkeeper sampling sites have the lowest and highest E. coli averages. We’ll continue to post our weekly results on the Swim Guide platform until September.

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