For most of the city’s history, pure water has drawn people to Asheville. While two events in the last three years have shaken the confidence of Asheville’s 125,000 water system customers, the purity of the region’s water has been a driver of growth for two centuries, according to a new book from Michael Holcombe.
Holcombe, who was Asheville’s water resources director from 1993-97, details how the region’s water has driven growth and has been the crux of the city’s most heated political fights since residents first pulled water from public wells in the town square in the early 1800s.
The Story of Asheville’s Water: Before and After Hurricane Helene takes readers on a chronological journey from its official recognition as a town in 1797 with a population of 38 to its recovery from the “greatest natural disaster yet to occur for the Asheville water system”: Tropical Storm Helene.
Along the way, Holcombe recounts how Asheville was the first city in North Carolina to install water filters on its public water supply — then the Swannanoa River — in 1889. Those filters became obsolete when the city began drawing water higher up in the mountains from the North Fork of the Swannanoa River near the present-day reservoir in 1903. Since then, the pristine nature of Asheville’s 18,000-acre watershed below Mount Mitchell has been a source of pride for city officials, Holcombe reports.
But that source of pride has also been the source of political squabbling going back nearly a century.
Xpress sat down with Holcombe recently to discuss his book and the current state of the Asheville water system.
Xpress: What made you write this book?
Holcombe: I was really stunned to realize a couple of years ago, through my role as member of the Independent Review Committee appointed by Asheville City Council, that there was really no written resource on the history of Asheville’s water system.
The water system has been central to the history of Asheville and continues to be, as witnessed by the cataclysm of Helene and how the water system was bereft of potable water production for 53 days. The farther you go back, the more important the water system was. And so having the time and the inclination, I thought it might be a good project to do.
Your book came out just three months after Helene. How did you incorporate that major event into the book?
I guess a character flaw in my life has always been a bit of procrastination. I had finished the book, and then I saw that Apple announced that it’d be bringing [artificial intelligence] out in October with writing tools. I thought, “Well, that might be a good way to catch grammatical errors or punctuation.” So I put it off, pending the AI release by Apple, which ironically, I didn’t use at all in the final product. But then, of course, Helene happened. It would have been absolutely dreadful to write such a book and publish it in August and have this event happen a month later when the volume was intended to be a comprehensive history of the water system.
What jumped out to you while you were doing research for your book?
The sense of explosion and growth once North Fork was developed. The city aldermen printed 10,000 copies of a treatise that was lauding the North Fork water and how wonderful it was. I still don’t feel like I understand how significant the explosion was. E.W. Grove, who had an interest in tourism, figured there were 150,000 people that came to Asheville to visit in the month of August 1921.
What was the impact of the 1933 Sullivan Act?
Billy Sullivan passed the Sullivan Act because there was concern that the city would use its water system to double or triple the rates of the water it was selling the districts and then use that water to pay off the debt that the city incurred during the Great Depression.
Asheville was precluded from using its water system as a tool for annexation. Water systems have actually been used all over the United States, and particularly in North Carolina, to do that. Asheville never was able to do that.
What did Helene teach you about the city’s water system as it stands today?
If you read between the lines, after hurricanes Frances and Ivan in 2004, the city found itself in the unenviable position as a water utility, functioning not only as a water supply source, but also as a flood control unit. Due to that terrible flood in Biltmore Village in 2004, [the city felt] the need to not only capture as much water as it could for water supply, but then to look at its discharge downstream and become responsible for warning the community during rain events. I would not have enjoyed taking on that additional responsibility. Tennessee Valley Authority dams like at Fontana are developed to control floods, unlike North Fork. With the completion of the auxiliary spillway and the other necessary improvements that they did at North Fork in 2021, they don’t open flood gates anymore.
The auxiliary spillway is designed to operate the way that it did during Helene. As bad as the destruction that happened at North Fork, it did save the main dam. It did save the water treatment plant.
After Helene, the turbidity of the water in the Burnette Reservoir reached record levels. Why didn’t the city have turbidity filters?
We were extremely proud of the direct filtration method of water treatment because it pointed to the purity of water. The water coming into the lake was already at the turbidity levels that most other municipal water systems had to spend a great deal of money on for sedimentation basins. Asheville didn’t have to do that because our water was already clean. It was like a feather in Asheville’s cap.
What should the city prioritize now?
It is time to get the main supply line from North Fork out of the flood plain. They’re going to have to lay a new waterline from North Fork to Bee Tree Junction.
I believe that’s the first thing they need to do and, of course, proceed with sedimentation basins for both North Fork and Bee Tree.
This report, and this book, are important contributions to our civic conversation.
Asheville’s much touted water quality …humm, well sure it’s cleaner than anything downstream of it, but that’s about it ( Asheville being in the enviable position of first in line at the headwaters). Once the water is treated with a serious dose of chlorine et al and run thru Asheville’s ancient and crumbling water systems pipes, it’s municipal tap water, period. Personally, I don’t know anyone who uses it for their preferred drinking water. And as for the turbidity after Helene ( good dodge by Mr Holcombe on that ..which says a lot) it will continue to be a problem as the mountains sides/ slides continue to come down with more frequent extreme precipitation weather events. just saying.
The name of the reservoir is Burnette Reservoir, a name lost in modern times and named after one of the first European settlers that settled the North Fork Valley. All of the 50 some families that lived or owned property in the surrounding 13,000 acres were forced from their ancestral homes by eminent domain so Asheville could control the watershed surrounding the present Burnette Reservoir. These are the stories that are never shared by the city but are preserved by descendants.
Van Burnette, direct descendant and North Fork resident
Thanks, Van. I hope you get a chance to read the book. (Pack Library has several copies.) My book does indeed cover how the City acquired the North Fork watershed, both in the period 1902-1903 and in the late 1920s when the majority of the Burnette properties were condemned/negotiated. I also tell the tale of Will Burnette and B.F. Burnette, the first two Watershed Wardens for the City of Asheville. Finally, the sacrifice of Will Burnette, Jr., Watershed Warden, on the Watershed May 10, 1936 while performing his duties (killed by a poacher) is shared.- Mike Holcombe