Rock star Timmy O’Neill gets “EnviroActive” Among rock climbers, the name Timmy O’Neill sparks a special admiration. Sponsored by outdoor outfitter Patagonia, O’Neill is perhaps most widely recognized for his and climbing partner Dean Potter‘s record-setting three-hour-and-24-minute jaunt up the Nose at El Capitan in Yosemite. (As if that weren’t enough, he made another trek […]

Dogwood hits the double digits A Dogwood Alliance protest in Atlanta, Ga., in 2001. It takes thousands of years for a forest ecosystem to develop fully, but no time at all, in relative terms, to process trees into junk mail. That’s one reason the Dogwood Alliance, Asheville’s own regional forest-defense organization, has devoted the past […]

As the world melts photo by Jonathan Welch Deputy Director of the Asheville-based National Climatic Data Center Sharon LeDuc delivered a lecture on climate change at Warren Wilson College on Oct. 17 to provide an overview of current scientific understanding on the topic. NCDC, which operates out of the Federal Building on Patton Avenue, archives […]

A vision for a viewshed In response to public concerns about proposed logging in Pisgah National Forest’s Grandfather Ranger District, just south of Blowing Rock, the U.S. Forest Service is developing an additional alternative to decrease the visual impact. “What we’re trying to do is listen carefully to people’s concerns, continue to do additional analysis […]

Cloudy currents courtesy Mountain Voices Alliance When slope development or intensive grading projects go awry, leaving topsoil churned up and liquefied into a muddy eyesore, storm-water and erosion-control issues take center stage. A storm-water ordinance passed recently by the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners (see “Storming the Barricades,” Oct. 4 Xpress) will impose fines on […]

The ABC’s of recycling Kimberly Raphael, financial manager at Curbside Management, often spends her afternoons educating schoolchildren on the surprising fates of recycled waste processed at the materials recovery facility. Number-one plastic? Crunched down into miniscule flakes, which are sent on to Alabama to be processed into thread-like fibers used for making carpet. Number-two plastic? […]

Adventures in Megawatt Valley collage courtesy Rising Tide North America “The Battle of Drax,” one headline reads. “The Green Revolution,” proclaims another. Abigail Singer, a member of Asheville-based Katuah Earth First! and climate-change activist, seems an unlikely revolutionary as she calmly rattles off facts about carbon trading, greenhouse gases and tons of carbon-dioxide emitted by […]

This waterfall in Pisgah National Forest is a geocache site featured in a UNCA photo exhibit by Margot Anne Kelley. Its coordinates: N35*18.402 W082*46.507. Too often, it seems, technological innovations cut people off from the natural environment. But at least one gadget has sparked a renewed connection with the natural world: the GPS device, a […]

A different kind of freedom fryer photo by Jonathan Welch There’s a singular aroma that emanates from veggie-powered vehicles, and as any cyclist who’s been stuck behind idling traffic can attest, it’s a welcome whiff compared with the exhaust of standard gasoline-fueled engines. “It smells like a fryer,” James Young, who recently began fueling his […]

Downwind from TVA Where electricity comes from: A breakdown of the TVA’s power generation in 2005. The “other” category represents renewable energy. “The story is, air quality is improving,” John Myers, an air-program manager at the Tennessee Valley Authority, announced before an audience gathered at the A-B Tech campus on Aug. 28. The presentation, sponsored […]

Tuckasegee residents rock the public hearing Cherrie Ann Moses, at the podium, addresses the archaeological significance of the site of the proposed rock quarry. photo by Rebecca Bowe More than 100 concerned residents of the Tuckasegee community crammed into Sylva’s Jackson County Justice and Administration Building on Aug. 22 for a public hearing concerning a […]

Inconvenient bike traffic to proclaim “inconvenient truth” The last time climate-change activist group Rising Tide North America staged a public demonstration in this region, they landed on the front page of Virginia’s Bristol Herald Courier for impeding operations at a coal-fired power plant in Carbo, Va. In that early-July protest, activists locked themselves down to […]

Life, liberty and breathable air For the third straight year, The Canary Coalition is gearing up for the long haul. Beginning Friday, Aug. 18, a group of volunteers from the Sylva-based nonprofit will embark on a 100-mile, round-the-clock trek along the Blue Ridge Parkway to call attention to the region’s air-quality problems. For 24 hours, […]

Temperatures were boiling as several hundred people crowded into Mars Hill College’s unair-conditioned Moore Auditorium for an Aug. 3 public hearing on a pair of sewage-treatment plants proposed for Madison County. The Scenic Wolf Mountain Wastewater Treatment Plant, as it’s called, would discharge 300,000 gallons of treated effluent daily into Puncheon Fork Creek, a tributary […]

There goes the neighborhood? When a proposed 279-acre subdivision comprised of 123 lots raises concerns about traffic congestion, water-table depletion, soil erosion and habitat destruction, can surrounding neighbors take action to stop it? “We can at least try,” says Beth Woody, whose property borders the site of the Brittain Knob development in Weaverville, one of […]

A film you can’t afford to miss Clean Water for North Carolina and Generation Engage realize how inconvenient it is for penniless eco-activists to shell out precious cash to see Al Gore’s new film about the frightening facts of climate change. That’s why the two organizations have partnered to offer a FREE screening of An […]

Haywood catches wind of green power Green power on the rise: Local renewable-energy company Solar Dynamics used a crane to install Haywood County’s first modern-day residential windmill, which stands 100 feet tall. Haywood County’s first residential wind turbine was installed several weeks ago by Asheville-based Solar Dynamics, a 5-year-old company specializing in renewable-energy installations. The […]