“We’ve pretty much been doing cleanups for 50 years without really seeing any real changes,” says Asheville GreenWorks’ operations manager Chelsea Adams. “We go back to the same roads, in the same section of river and creek, every single year and do cleanups over and over and over.”
“On Swannanoa River Road from Biltmore Avenue — especially near the Antique Tobacco Barn and on down toward Tunnel Road — the overgrowth over the river is a sorry sight indeed.”
“Because the park is in a flood zone, a permanent fix may indeed be difficult. But in the meantime, surely something could be done to make the park usable.”
GemFinding owner Chip Freeman hopes that the community will rally behind his last two river cleanups, taking place at Azalea Park on Saturday, Sept. 1, and Saturday, Sept. 15. “The cleanup depends on how many people we have there to tackle it,” he says. “You don’t have to come for four hours —if you pick up four or five pieces of trash, you’ve done something.”
ASHEVILLE, NC
“The trains kept delivering huge quantities of black treasure to the river basin, but some pretenders began to threaten King Coal’s empire. These upstart princes came from a rapidly emerging dynasty called Petroleum, whose emissaries were traveling far and wide to challenge King Coal’s awesome power.”
In this edition of Warren Wilson College’s “Swannanoa Journal,” Sandy Pfeiffer muses about paddling the Swannanoa River, an adventure that includes a near-disaster near a fallen tree, advice from land-bound bystanders, an encounter with a blue heron and assistance from a good samaritan.
Paddling along the section of the Swannanoa that runs alongside Swannanoa River Road, which winds underneath the bridges that connect to Circuit City and Wal-Mart, we saw a lot of junk.
On a sunny afternoon last month, French Broad Riverkeeper Hartwell Carson of RiverLink took a detour during a canoe trip down the Swannanoa River. With this reporter and a photographer in tow, Carson stopped the boat where Sweeten Creek flows into the Swannanoa, near Biltmore Village. Pulling on waders, we slogged down Sweeten Creek to […]
Black Mountain resident Harry Hamil was alarmed. According to new flood maps released by the N.C. Department of Crime Control and Public Safety in October, a 100-year flood would place much of his property at 151 Ridgeway Ave. underwater. River rising: New flood maps suggest that Ingles’ Swannanoa distribution center is at greater risk of […]
Jim Augins was thinking about his yarn. In the first week of September 2004, when The Weather Channel and local newscasts were making dire predictions about the possibility that Hurricane Frances might ride the spine of the Blue Ridge north, Augins took heed.
RiverLink was recently the recipient of two grants for restoration and improvement of the water quality and habitat in several area streams.
