Residents can now track new developments in their neighborhood using an online GIS tracking device.
Author: Rebecca Bowe
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The Green Scene
The advent of alternative fuels in Western North Carolina may be the nudge our area needs to improve air quality. A Blue Ridge Biofuels pump recently installed at Biltmore BP on Hendersonville Road, now dispensing a 20 percent biodiesel blend, is the first of several new fuel options springing up in our area that don’t […]
Track changes
As reading material goes, a spiral-bound report by an undergraduate intern titled “A Cadastral-Based Change Analysis,” based on information gleaned from county tax offices, might sound like a bit of a yawner. But at a time when the phrase “steep-slope development” is enough to make local land conservationists’ hair stand on end, this study marks […]
The Green Scene
A Feb. 6 fly-over compliments of SouthWings—an Asheville-based nonprofit that provides free flights for conservation organizations and members of the media—gave Mountain Xpress a bird’s-eye view of a few development sites in Buncombe and Madison counties that have spurred controversy in recent months. Volunteer Darwin Jones piloted the four-passenger Cessna, and Louise O’Connor of People […]
The Green Scene
Grab some tofurkey and gather round the radio If you happen to grab a bite at the Greenlife Grocery hot bar on a Tuesday night and wander over to the cafe area to chow down, be forewarned: You could end up on television. Each week, the health-food hot spot is transformed into a combined radio-and-television […]
The Green Scene
Fly by night: These nocturnal, federally endangered Carolina Northern Flying Squirrels do not actually fly – they glide. photo by J.D. Mays Chris Kelly hardly seems fazed by the frigid wind chill as she makes her way up a narrow, stainless-steel ladder leaned against a yellow birch. Wearing cumbersome yellow gloves, she secures the ladder […]
Want to talk about the Woodfin power plant?
On Saturday, Feb. 3, at 11 a.m., a coalition of area residents calling themselves New Energy Paradigms will get together for an information session on the proposal to build a new power plant in Woodfin. The event, which goes until 2 p.m., will be held at the Weaverville library, a short drive from Woodfin.
The price of progress
by Rebecca Bowe The eerie, springtime-in-January spell that marked the beginning of 2007 abruptly ended Jan. 9 when a snow flurry whipped through Western North Carolina. Schools were let out early; traffic slowed to a crawl. But the hostile weather wasn’t enough to deter some 40 or 50 people from attending Progress Energy’s open house […]
The Green Scene
The greening of striking red-hot iron photo by Jonathan Welch Ever heard the phrase “too many irons in the fire”? William Rogers, who has been a metal smith for 30 years, says it’s derived from the craft of blacksmithing: Stacking too many iron rods in the forge at one time could cause a smith to […]
Thursday night in Asheville: Tools for blocking big-box stores
Stacy Mitchell, author of Big Box Swindle: The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America’s Independent Businesses, will speak at the Crowne Plaza Resort, One Holiday Inn Drive, on Thursday, Jan. 25, from 7 to 9 p.m. “Mitchell’s book shows citizens’ coalitions how to fight big-box expansion,” says Heather Rayburn of Mountain Voices […]
The Green Scene
A hard-core activist: Ruth Clark singlehandedly collected nearly 3,000 signatures for an Energy Future Resoution. photo by Jonathan Welch North Carolina state Reps. Susan Fisher, Bruce Goforth and Sen. Martin Nesbitt formally received a thick stack of petitions signed in support of the North Carolina Energy Future Resolution at a Jan. 8 press event. Spearheaded […]
The Green Scene
A billion dollars’ worth of protected land The Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy is working to put a conservation easement on Hickory Nut Gap Farm. courtesy SAHC Farmers, land conservationists, public officials and area residents crowded into A-B Tech’s Ferguson Auditorium Jan. 4 to comment on a plan that would allocate an additional $1 billion in […]
Disappearing Appalachia
Author Henry Caudill once remarked ruefully that while North Carolina has the Biltmore and West Virginia has the Greenbrier, eastern Kentucky’s most popular tourist attraction is poverty. In Lost Mountain: A Year in the Vanishing Wilderness (Riverhead Books, 2006), Erik Reece maintains that Kentucky’s coalfields primarily attract two kinds of people: well-intentioned idealists hoping to […]
The Green Scene
New Year’s resolutions for a warming planet Anyone else find it a little disconcerting when temperatures creep up into the 70s in December? Recently, NASA determined that 2006 would be the fifth-hottest year on record, while the Geneva-based World Meteorological Organization will rank it as the sixth. Either way, scientists have reached international consensus that […]
The Green Scene
MHO leaves other communities green with envy And the winner is … : Mountain Housing Opportunities Executive Director Scott Dedman (center) accepts a check from the Home Depot Foundation. photo by Jonathan Welch On a recent sunny, blustery afternoon, neighborhood residents, city officials, Mountain Housing Opportunities staffers and a host of others gathered at Prospect […]
The Green Scene
A proposed $72 million, 130 megawatt power plant near Woodfin could be in operation as early as December 2009. Announced by Progress Energy Dec. 1, the plant — which would occupy a former landfill site the company hopes to lease from Buncombe County — would provide electricity for 150,000 Western North Carolina customers during peak-demand […]
The Green Scene
The secret life of a camouflaged salamander courtesy N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission The green salamander, one of Western North Carolina’s endemic amphibians, spends daylight hours tucked away in dark crevices of rocky outcrops. It sometimes inhabits the cavities of decaying trees, concealed among lichens and mossy branches by its unusual smattering of black, yellow and […]
Saving which environment?
“What are we going to do when every square inch of downtown is concrete?” — Julie Brandt, People Advocating Real Conservancy “We want to maximize that three acres. Not just from an economic standpoint, but from a use standpoint for the city.” — David Payne, Power Development LLC Timber: Under current plans for the Ravenscroft […]
The Green Scene
A golden — er, green — opportunity? To local green visionaries, Western North Carolina’s economic future could be as bright and shiny as an emerald city. Entrepreneurs, engineers, economic-development specialists and government representatives gathered at the Green Venture Forum in Enka on Nov. 21 to exchange ideas about a green-technology-based future for WNC. Hosted by […]
The Green Scene
Your blow-dryer may be powered by wind courtesy NC GreenPower “I’m an ardent environmentalist,” Clyde homeowner Louis Mes declared, standing at a podium with his back to a stunning overlook of Haywood County’s mountain landscape. Mes, a surgeon originally from South Africa who spends most of the year in Lafayette, La., was addressing a crowd […]
The Green Scene
A citizens’ guide to forests, subdivisions Making the grade: Here, slope-side grading that will become an airstrip for private jets going to and from Wolf Ridge in Madison County. photo by Pete Orthman, courtesy SouthWings The Mountain Voices Alliance, a coalition of citizen groups concerned about the environmental impacts of steep-slope development, hosted an educational […]