When Hurricane Helene tore through Western North Carolina, thousands of PVC pipes washed off IPEX property and into the French Broad River, traveling miles downstream and extending well into Tennessee. While we could not have predicted Helene’s catastrophic impacts, we can learn from them.
Almost overnight, these PVC pipes became widespread plastic pollution, transforming a natural disaster into a long-term environmental crisis. MountainTrue cleanup crews have been working every day to remove this material from the river. The work is demanding, technical, and slow. PVC pipe becomes lodged in riverbanks, tangled in vegetation, buried under sediment, and trapped in logjams — often in hard-to-access areas that require specialized equipment and trained crews to reach safely. Despite these challenges, the scale of the problem is unmistakable. Close to half of the debris our crews recover downstream of the IPEX plant is IPEX-branded PVC pipe. This is not incidental litter; it is industrial pollution on a massive scale.
Extreme weather events like Hurricane Helene are becoming more frequent and more intense. That reality demands stronger preparation and accountability from industrial operators located near rivers and floodplains. While storms may be unavoidable, preventable industrial pollution is not. Safeguards such as secure storage systems, flood-resilient containment, and emergency response planning can significantly reduce the risk of material loss during disasters.
As a neighbor to our river and corporate citizen, IPEX has a duty to step up. This includes investing in meaningful safeguards to prevent inventory loss in future floods, being prepared to remove inventory from their property in the event of a future catastrophic storm, and acknowledging the significant impact of this loss of product on the French Broad River. Leadership in this moment means accountability and action. We urge IPEX to recognize the lessons that Helene has taught us and take steps to prevent this from happening again.
Tell IPEX to take action today.
