Ask The General Assembly To Support WNC Rivers in the Budget
Celebrate Earth Day with MountainTrue
As you may have heard, the NC Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) announced recently that it will order a full cleanup of every coal ash pit in the state! This is truly one of the biggest environmental victories of our era. As if that wasn’t enough, last week Duke Energy announced that it has indefinitely postponed the construction of a 190-megawatt gas-fired peaker plant on Lake Julian, removing it from its list of future projects.
For six years, MountainTrue members kept the pressure on Duke Energy and the state Department of Environmental Quality to clean up the coal ash mess and to move beyond fossil fuels toward more efficiency and renewable energy. You are part of that legacy. Your support held Duke Energy accountable. These victories are an important reminder that your activism can change the course of history.
When you stand with MountainTrue, you fight for our environment. Will you stand alongside MountainTrue this Earth Day?
Whether you’re taking action in the field, making conscious decisions in your daily life that lead to a sustainable future, or making contributions that invest in a lasting impact, we celebrate you for being part of a community that is making a difference this Earth Day.
By donating to MountainTrue, you safeguard public lands, advocate for the common good in the halls of government, protect our waterways, and help build a sustainable future in the face of climate change.
In honor of Earth Day, act locally by making a contribution to MountainTrue today. With your donation, you will be helping to fight for future successes like these.
Thank you for being part of MountainTrue and making this work possible.
Florence is Coming. Here Are Some Resources to Help Keep You Safe
Hurricane path shifts south. Heavy rains forecast for WNC.
With the path of Hurricane Florence shifting south, parts of Western North Carolina could see high winds and significant rain this weekend.
For the latest storm tracking reports and forecasts, check out:
https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/ graphics_at1.shtml?cone# contents
Or https://google.org/crisismap/ 2018-florence
Water Safety
Our French Broad, Green and Watauga Riverkeepers and the Broad River Alliance urge paddlers to use common sense and stay out of rushing rivers and high winds until they return to safe levels. Do not try to paddle during a hurricane.
You can check the French Broad River Gauge page to see if it is safe to paddle:
https://frenchbroadpaddle.com/gauges
For other WNC rivers, you can check the USGS website: https://waterdata.usgs.gov/nc/nwis/current/?type=flow
Park Closures
The Blue Ridge Parkway has issued an emergency evacuation order for its campsites. For more Parkway updates:
https://www.nps.gov/blri/planyourvisit/conditions.htm
Pisgah-Nantahala National Forests have issued a closure for all campgrounds and recreation sites, day use or overnight, and asked that people not use public trails until the storm passes: https://www.fs.usda.gov/alerts/nfsnc/alerts-notices/?aid=49130
Great Smoky Mountain National Park has yet to issue any hurricane-related advisories or closures. For more updates, visit: https://www.nps.gov/grsm/index.htm
Landslides and Flooding
Because it’s been a wet summer, Florence’s prolonged rain storms have the potential to cause flooding and landslides.
Check out the NC Department of Public Safety’s preparedness resources for steps you can take before, during and after a flood or landslide to lower your risks. This includes not walking or driving through moving water. Six inches of moving water can sweep you off your feet and 11 inches can move a vehicle.
Floods: https://readync.org/EN/Informed_NatHaz_Flood.html
Landslides: https://readync.org/EN/Informed_NatHaz_Landslide.html
Other Resources
Created by the United Way of North Carolina, the North Carolina 2-1-1 site offers community health and human services resources and services, and real-time support and communications during emergencies and disasters: https://www.nc211.org/
Duke Energy has a special online resource for Hurricane Florence with links to view current outages and report new ones: https://www.dukeenergyupdates.com/florence/north-carolina
The Department of Public Safety also has a special resource page for Hurricane Florence with updates on evacuations, road conditions and shelter locations: https://www.ncdps.gov/florence
The storm’s path could shift over the next few days and forecasts could change dramatically. Stay informed, be safe and get prepared in the days to come.
Series of Expert Panels to Discuss Future of Nantahala & Pisgah National Forests in Sylva, Boone, Brevard and Andrews this March
Media Contact:
Eliza Stokes, MountainTrue Advocacy & Communications Associate
Email: eliza@mountaintrue.org Phone: 828-258-8737 ext. 218
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Sylva, N.C. – Experts representing a diverse group of conservation, recreation and business interests will take part in a series of special panel events on the future of the Nantahala-Pisgah National Forests this March. The panels, which will be held in Sylva, Boone, Brevard, and Andrews, will present visions for a win-win forest management plan that allows all interests to co-exist and thrive in Western North Carolina’s national forests.
The Forest Plan Determines the Future of Our Forests
This year, the U.S. Forest Service will release the first draft of a new forest management plan for Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests. This big-picture plan sets the ground rules for all activities in the forests for the next fifteen years or more: from wildlife management and timber sales on public lands to the hiking, fishing and mountain biking for which our region is famous.
Comprising more than a million acres combined, Nantahala and Pisgah are a central part of our natural and cultural heritage and a driver of our region’s economy. Everyone who loves our forests has an issue they care about that will be impacted by the new forest management plan.
We’re Working Together for a Plan That Benefits Everyone
In the spirit of cooperation, the Nantahala-Pisgah Forest Partnership was formed to gather all forest interest groups into the same room at once: timber, water, wildlife, recreation, wilderness and more. We don’t leave anyone behind, and we believe it’s critical that everyone be willing to support everyone else’s values with the expectation that the support will be reciprocal. For the past five years, the Partnership has come up with a vision and a set of recommendations for a forest plan that supports all forest interests at once. The Forest Service has also received recommendations from other groups participating in the forest plan revision, and now we want to share the best of those ideas with the wider public.
The panel schedules are as follows:
Sylva
March 15 at the Jackson County Public Library, 6-7:30pm
Panelists: Josh Kelly, Public Lands Field Biologist for MountainTrue
Tommy Cabe, Tribal Forest Resource Specialist for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians
Andrea Leslie, Habitat Conservation Coordinator for the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission
Bill Kane, Board Member of the NC Wildlife Federation
Boone
March 22 at the Watauga County Public Library, 6-7:30pm
Panelists: Josh Kelly, Public Lands Field Biologist for MountainTrue
Julie White, Director of the Southern Off-Road Mountain Bicycle Association (SORBA)
Jim Sitts, Appalachian Timber Manager for Columbia Forest Products
Curtis Smalling, Director of Conservation for Audubon North Carolina in Boone
Deirdre Perot, Representative of BackCountry Horsemen of Pisgah
Brevard
March 27 at the Transylvania County Public Library, 6-7:30pm
Panelists: Tom Thomas, President of Back Country Horsemen of NC and Member of
North Carolina Horse Council
Megan Sutton, Southern Blue Ridge Program Director of The Nature Conservancy
David Whitmire, Fish & Wildlife Conservation Council and Co-Owner of Headwaters Outfitters
Kevin Colburn, National Stewardship Director of American Whitewater
Fred Hardin, Forester with Gilkey Lumber Company
Andrews
March 29 at the Andrews Community Center, 6-7:30pm
Panelists: Callie Moore, Executive Director of the Hiwassee Watershed Coalition
Tommy Cabe, Tribal Forest Resource Specialist for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians
Sophia Paulos, Economic Development Director of Graham County
Chris Coxen, District Biologist for the National Wild Turkey Federation
The panels in Sylva, Boone and Andrews will be moderated by journalist and professor of economics at Blue Ridge Community College Jack Igelman. The panel in Brevard will be moderated by Lee McMinn of the Transylvania County Resources Council. The events are free and open to the public, and will include a question-and-answer portion with the audience at the end. Refreshments will be provided.
The panel events are sponsored by MountainTrue and the following members of the Nantahala-Pisgah Forest Partnership: Access Fund, American Whitewater, Backcountry Horsemen of NC, Carolina Land & Lakes RC&D, Columbia Forest Products, Defenders of Wildlife, Hiwassee River Watershed Coalition, International Mountain Bicycling Association, North Carolina Horse Council, North Carolina Youth Camp Association, Root Cause, Southern Appalachian Mineral Society, Southern Appalachian Wilderness Stewards, Southern Off-Road Bicycle Association, The Nature Conservancy, Trout Unlimited, the Wilderness Society, and Wild South. The panel in Brevard is also sponsored by the Fish & Wildlife Conservation Council.
For more information, visit: https://mountaintrue.org
RSVP for the event on Facebook:
Sylva: https://www.facebook.com/event
Boone: https://www.facebook.com/event
Brevard: https://www.facebook.com/event
Andrews: https://www.facebook.com/event
About MountainTrue:
MountainTrue is the oldest grassroots environmental non-profit in North Carolina and champions resilient forests, clean waters and healthy communities. We engage in policy advocacy at all levels of government, local project advocacy, and on-the-ground environmental restoration projects across 23 counties in our region.
About the Nantahala-Pisgah Forest Partnership:
The Nantahala-Pisgah Forest Partnership strives to create a lasting voice for innovative management and public investment in the public forests of North Carolina’s mountains for the future. We envision a thriving, resilient forest within its natural range of variation, able to support healthy ecosystems, wildlife populations, local economies, and traditional uses. We envision a forest with the connectivity and integrity to remain resilient in the face of the changes and challenges of the future.
About the WNC Fish & Wildlife Conservation Council:
The Fish and Wildlife Conservation Council, formed by a variety of sportsmen and other wildlife interests, supports the sound management and conservation of all wildlife resources in the Nantahala-Pisgah National Forest and provides support and positive guidance to ensure a diversity of wildlife thrives there.
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MountainTrue and Asheville Design Center to Merge
MountainTrue and Asheville Design Center to Merge
MountainTrue is excited to welcome Chris Joyell and the Asheville Design Center to the MountainTrue team. Asheville Design Center (ADC) and MountainTrue have announced their intent to merge in the Fall of 2017.
Chris Joyell, executive director of Asheville Design Center.
There is a long history of collaboration and a strong alignment between MountainTrue’s land use and transportation work & ADC’s community planning work. Merging will strengthen both organizations and help communities across all of Western North Carolina better address their needs through a combination of grassroots organizing, community-driven planning and strategic advocacy.
MountainTrue members will vote on whether to approve the merger at our 2017 Annual Gathering on October 25 at New Belgium Brewing in Asheville. If the merger is approved, Asheville Design Center will retain its name and operate as a program of MountainTrue.
“The merger creates one organization that is better able to pursue a holistic approach to our built and natural environments,” explains Chris Joyell, executive director of the Asheville Design Center.
Asheville Design Center is inviting its members and supporters to celebrate the merger with a toast at MountainTrue’s upcoming Annual Gathering at New Belgium on October 25 from 6-8 pm. The Annual Gathering is open to all members. Contributing supporters of ADC will receive a complimentary one-year membership to MountainTrue. Click here to RSVP.
“This is a merger that benefits both organizations,” explains Carrie Turner, ADC board chair. “ADC will benefit from MountainTrue’s larger infrastructure and will be able to expand and develop more impactful programs. “MountainTrue, for its part, will gain ADC’s know-how when it comes to helping residents plan for the health of their own communities.”
“MountainTrue has the experience and capacity to organize the public in support of the kind of community-driven design planning that ADC is expert at conducting,” explains Bob Wagner, co-director of MountainTrue. “By aligning our work, we’ll be able to better meet the needs of people throughout WNC.”
UNCA’s Bee Hotel
The Bee Hotel at UNC-Asheville (2016)
Completed Pavilion
Outdoor Classroom, Burton St. Community Garden (2011)
Stage Unveiling
U-LEAF: Mobile Unfolding Performance Stage we built for LEAF (2015)
I-26 Connector
I-26 Connector: Future Bowen Bridge (2008)
Triangle Park Mural
Triangle Park Mural (2013) -credit Michael Carlebach
Collaboration between the Asheville Design Center and MountainTrue goes back to 2009 when the two organizations created Blue Ridge Blueprints — a grassroots planning program to help communities plan for and design their futures while preserving local character and protecting the natural environment. Through Blue Ridge Blueprints, ADC and MountainTrue partnered with residents to develop the Burton Street Community Plan when that neighborhood was threatened by the proposed I-26 Connector.
The Burton Street community had recently overcome issues of crime, poor infrastructure and shifting demographics, and, in 2010, a plan to expand I-26 threatened to impede this progress and displace many long-time residents. At the invitation of the community, ADC and MountainTrue worked with local residents to develop a vision, goals and strategies to achieve those goals. ADC design volunteers conducted numerous surveys and workshops to inform a community plan, while MountainTrue organized the community and helped participants prioritize goals for implementation.
The Burton Street Community Plan helped spur the adoption of the Smith Mill Creek Greenway into the City’s greenway master plan and prompted ADC’s DesignBuild Studio to construct an outdoor classroom for the Burton St. Community Peace Garden.
This work helped us establish our trajectory when MountainTrue and the ADC worked side-by-side on the I-26 Connector Project to push for a design that minimized the highway’s footprint and its impacts on Asheville’s neighborhoods, including Burton Street. ADC worked directly with affected communities through a participatory planning process and then offered detailed improvements to the North Carolina Department of Transportation that were supported by the people. MountainTrue subsequently worked with specifically impacted neighborhoods to generate and maintain support for the principles underpinning ADC’s proposed highway design.
“We had both strong, consistent public support and good design principles. That gave us credibility and power,” says Julie Mayfield, co-director of MountainTrue. “In 2016, we made history when NCDOT selected a variation of ADC’s design, Alternative 4B, as the first community-authored highway design ever to be adopted by a state DOT.”
These real-world examples of collaboration light the path forward: one organization better able to support more communities across the region in building a better, healthier and cleaner WNC for all.
Media Coverage:
- Karen Chavez, “MountainTrue merges with Asheville Design Center”
Asheville Citizen-Times, September 21, 2017 - Staff, “MountainTrue, Asheville Design Center to merge”
Henderson Times-News, September 21, 2017 - Carolyn Morrisroe, “MountainTrue and Asheville Design Center to merge”
MountainXpress, September 21, 2017 - Staff, “MountainTrue, Asheville Design Center to merge”
WLOS, September 21, 2017 - Staff, “MountainTrue and Asheville Design Center To Merge”
The Transylvania Times, September 25, 2017
Attend USFS Open Houses And Speak Up for Protecting the Pisgah-Nantahala
Attend USFS Open Houses And Speak Up for Protecting the Pisgah-Nantahala
The forests belong to all of us and we’re responsible for making sure they are protected for future generations.
As part of the Nantahala-Pisgah National Forests management plan revision process, the U.S. Forest Service will hold six open house events across the region from late June to early August to provide the public with opportunities to talk with Forest Service staff about local issues, district projects, and the forest plan revision.
If you care about Western North Carolina’s national forests, enjoy our beautiful mountain vistas and hiking trails, or playing in the many streams and swimming holes within Pisgah and Nantahala, this is your opportunity to talk directly with Forest Service staff one-on-one about how the forest will be managed for the years to come.
Each District Open House will highlight the areas within that district. District rangers and members of the Forest Plan revision team will be available to discuss the materials each of the following days and locations:
- June 29, 6-8 p.m.: Grandfather Ranger District at Foothills Conference Center, 2128 S. Sterling St., Morganton.
- July 11, 6-8 p.m.: Nantahala Ranger District at Tartan Hall, 26 Church St., Franklin.
- July 13, 6-8 p.m.: Pisgah Ranger District Office, 1600 Pisgah Hwy, Brevard.
- July 25, 3-6 p.m.: Appalachian Ranger District at Appalachian District Office, 632 Manor Road, Mars Hill.
- July 25, 3-6 p.m.: Cheoah Ranger District at Cheoah District Office, 1070 Massey Branch Road, Robbinsville.
- August 8, 3-6 p.m., Tusquitee Ranger District, Brasstown Community Center, 255 Settawig Rd, Brasstown
The Nantahala and Pisgah National Forests have been revising their Forest Plan, a required document that provides a general framework to guide management of the Forests. As part of the process, 30 public meetings have been held in communities throughout western North Carolina.
Over the past year, the Forest Service has been releasing pre-draft plan materials on the National Forests in North Carolina website – www.fs.usda.gov/goto/nfsnc/nprevision. Additional materials are posted to the site’s Plan Revision Under Construction page as they become available.
Here are MountainTrue’s assessments based on the current pre-draft plan materials:
- Nantahala and Pisgah National Forests in general:
There are many special places that are in the wrong management area and lack the amount of protection they require. In particular, Daniel Ridge, Cedar Rock Mountain, Upper Santeetlah Creek, Ash Cove, Tellico Bald, Snowball Mountain, Lickstone Ridge, and dozens of smaller natural areas are not protected by the forest plan. The Bartram Trail, Benton McKay Trail, Art Loeb Trail, and Mountains-To-Sea Trail lack a management area that would preserve the special character of these long-distance hiking trails. They should be designated as special corridors, similar to the Appalachian Trail and the Trail of Tears which have such protection.We are pleased by the creation of a new Special Interest Area in Big Ivy, though it should cover all of Big Ivy, and not just a portion of it.By Ranger Districts: - Grandfather Ranger District: Linville Mountain should be placed in backcountry management. The Upper Creek Gorge/Sugar Knob Backcountry area should be expanded. The Upper Wilson Creek Backcountry area should be expanded.
- Appalachian Ranger District: Snowball Mountain, Coxcombe Mountain, and Shope Creek should be included in the Craggy Mountains/Big Ivy Special Interest Area.
- Pisgah Ranger District: Upper Courthouse Creek, Daniel Ridge, Cedar Rock Mountain, and upper Lickstone Ridge should be placed in backcountry Management to protect their remote character and the species that depend on them.
- Nantahala Ranger District: All of Panthertown Valley and Flat Creek should be in backcountry management. Tellico Bald, Siler Bald, and Fish Hawk Mountain should be placed in backcountry management. The backcountry area around Terrapin Mountain should be expanded to 4,000 acres. Corbin Knob, Hench Knob, and Chunky Gal Mountain should be Special Interest Areas.
- Cheoah Ranger District: Upper Santeetlah Creek should be a Special Interest Area or backcountry area.
- Tusquitee District: Gipp Creek should be placed in backcountry management. The Unicoi Mountain backcountry area should be expanded.
We encourage you to turn out and speak up for protecting these natural areas of our forests. We will have staff at each of these open house events and we look forward to meeting you there.