While you might not be wowed by the frequent flotillas of brightly colored tubes drifting down the French Broad River this summer, the river will be plenty busy with recreational users.

Tropical Storm Helene’s raging flood waters did a number on the river, and particularly on its main tributary, the Swannanoa River, but the waterway is in surprisingly good condition as river outfitters prepare to begin their seasons this weekend.

Devin deHoll, co-founder of Asheville Adventure Co., said the river is “looking really good” and that they plan to use several sections of it this season, particularly the rapids north of Asheville known as Section 9. That section runs roughly from near Marshall to Hot Springs, both towns in Madison County. The company has been running kayak and raft trips but will add tubing this weekend.

“We’ve been really impressed by all the efforts the Army Corps of Engineers did, and all the cleanup that happened along the river and in the river,” deHoll said. “So we’re using all of our sections as usual, and we’re open now for rafting, tubing and kayaking.”

Aubrey Anderson, owner of Zen Tubing, the area’s largest tubing outfitter and the one responsible for many of the flotillas of meandering tubers, said they open Friday and feel optimistic about the season. They are making a concession to Helene, she said, and just operating on the southern part of the French Broad, from about the Glenn Bridge River Park to their main location at Brevard Road.

“(In a normal year), we do about 20,000 (guests) in the River Arts District and 20,000 at our south location,” Anderson said. “So we typically see 40,000 guests in the summer.”

That will be cut in half this summer, as Anderson said they won’t be sending tubers down the section of the French Broad that runs through the River Arts District. After Helene and the damage it wrought, including sweeping homes, cars, propane tanks and other materials downriver, potential tubers are “being cautious,” she said.

“I think the numbers are kind of down for river recreation in general in this area, because people do know there was a hurricane, it impacted this area tremendously,” Anderson said. “And I think people are being cautious. And I don’t blame them for being cautious.”

But she said once they explain the situation — and that they are open — bookings ensue.

“It’s just educating people as to what areas are a little safer, and how to do this without being at risk, but always with the caveat that this is something you need to make sure that you’re comfortable doing and that you’re cautious with doing it,” Anderson said. “Because with any natural river, whether we’ve had a tropical storm or we’re flooding or not, there’s an element of risk, and we don’t know everything you know that’s out there.”

So far, though, they’ve had customers returning, and Anderson said that’s encouraging.

10 days and 146 miles on the river

Hartwell Carson, clean waters director at the Asheville-based environmental nonprofit MountainTrue, recently completed a 10-day paddling trip on the French Broad, from the headwaters in Transylvania County all the way to Douglas Lake in Tennessee, 146 miles in total. The river is one of the few in the world that runs south to north, and in North Carolina it passes through Transylvania, Henderson, Buncombe and Madison counties before reaching Tennessee.

“I was very pleased at the shape of the river, particularly when you saw what it looked like after the storm,” Carson said. “My first reaction after the storm (was), “It’ll take 100 years to clean this up.’ And then to get out there and see it looking as good as it did was super encouraging.”

The river drains the French Broad River Valley, and Carson said the sections in Transylvania, Henderson and southern Buncombe were refreshingly clean, mainly because there’s less development in those areas.

“There’s stretches of river that certainly need work, and there’s stretches that really don’t need any work, which was also very surprising,” Carson said. “From the headwaters in Rosman to almost to the Swannanoa (at its junction with the French Broad), it looks great. There were stretches of the river where we were like, ‘You can’t even tell anything ever happened, particularly in Transylvania and Henderson (counties) — they didn’t get hit as hard as we got, so that makes sense. But they’ve also done some cleanup.”

He praised the Army Corps not only for storm cleanup but also for cleaning up longstanding debris jams at several bridges.

Army Corps of Engineers spokesperson Bobby Petty said Wednesday that the Corps “continues to sprint to the June 1 target for waterway debris removal.” Petty did not have specific debris removal statistics for the French Broad River.

“But as of Monday within Asheville city limits, 284,000 cubic yards of waterway debris from 134 sites has been cleared of the total estimated 484,000 cubic yards from 260 waterway debris sites,” Petty said via email. 

Petty noted that the Corps is working in 16 counties in western North Carolina. Of 3,929 sites, the Corps has cleared roughly 40 percent of them as of Wednesday.

“Of the nearly 2,200 western North Carolina sites remaining, we feel reasonably confident we’ll clear about 50 percent of those sites in the next two weeks,” Petty said.

Petty noted that the Corps hires contractors to do the work, and in some cases counties and cities hire their own.

“Counties and cities — such as Buncombe County and Asheville — may utilize their own county/city workforce for some of their cleanup, or opt to contract out some of their debris management and/or labor via their own contracting process,” Petty said.

The Corps cleared the French Broad Electric site in Madison County along the French Broad.

“Along the French Broad River in Asheville — between the University of North Carolina Asheville to Hominy Creek River Park — the Army Corps of Engineers has been working to clear about 47 waterway debris sites since beginning work in Buncombe County on Feb. 1,” Petty said. “Of those 47 sites, all but six sites north of the I-26/240 bridge have been cleared.”

Anna Gurney, a spokesperson for the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, said the agency “doesn’t have any particular warning for recreationalists.”

“Fortunately, most of the French Broad River did not have the level of damage nor debris as its tributaries and other parts of western North Carolina,” Gurney said via email.  

She did say the commission’s law enforcement division reminds people to wear a life vest and “be cautious of any possible debris from the storm or otherwise.” 

‘And then it changes…’

Where the Swannanoa River joins the French Broad near the Biltmore Estate, storm damage remains very evident. The Swannanoa drains the Swannanoa Valley east of Asheville out to Black Mountain, and then runs east Asheville, Biltmore Village and the Biltmore Estate.

At its confluence with the French Broad near the Amboy Road Bridge, “then it changes,” Carson said. “If you get into the Swannanoa (confluence near the RAD), that’s sort of the point where you’re like, ‘Oh yeah, clearly there was a storm here.’”

Downstream of Asheville, to the north, Carson said, “There’s still a lot of work to do, for sure,” mostly trash cleanup and some debris. But it’s still “come an amazingly long way since post-storm to now. “

“We were able to paddle through everything, no problem — not dangerous,” Carson said. “There’s nothing scary, kind of blocking your route, or anything like that. But there’s certainly places along the way where you’re like, ‘Oh, there’s obviously trash from the storm, or there’s some bank erosion from the storm.’”

Carson, Hunt and others interviewed for this story mentioned that the French Broad is much cleaner than in decades past, but even before Helene it still was known for discarded tires, empty water bottles and other detritus. 

The French Broad is also notorious for high levels of e. Coli, “a group of bacteria that can cause infections in your gut, urinary tract and other parts of your body,” according to the Cleveland Clinic. “Most of the time, it can live in your gut without hurting you. But some strains can make you sick with watery diarrhea, vomiting and a fever.”

As Mountain Xpress reported in the summer of 2023, “A new report by conservation nonprofit MountainTrue finds that E. coli concentrations in the French Broad River near Asheville regularly exceed eight times the standard considered safe for swimming by the federal Environmental Protection Agency.”

For years, experts have said the river is safe to tube, paddle or swim, as long as you do not have open cuts or sores. 

Carson said this week MountainTrue will “start sampling for E. coli next week, so nothing new to report.”

Restoring parks to cost $25 million, take years

Complicating some recreation efforts along the river is the state of city and county parks. On April 24, the City of Asheville issued a press release stating it has posted a “Request for Qualifications” for design services to rebuild damaged parks along the river.

Helene caused at least $25 million in damage to the city’s river parks, which include French Broad Broad River Park, Carrier Park, Amboy Riverfront Park, Jean Webb Park and the Wilma Dykeman and French Broad River greenways, among others. The release notes the city plans to bring a design team on board this fall, with the design and public engagement process expected to take two years, followed by two to three years of construction.

That’s a total possible timeline of five years, although the city said it will use a phased approach and “public access will be maximized throughout the duration of the project, allowing as many amenities as possible to be open for public use.”

In Buncombe County, spokesperson Johanna Cano said Tuesday that Corcoran Paige River Park is open, and Hominy Creek River Park is partially open with the peninsula closed. Information on parks is available on the county’s park page.

“There are currently no timelines for when the other river parks will be open, due to them being ‘Temporary Offload Staging’ sites for storm debris,” Cano said. “That mission is set to be completed by the end of June at this time, but locations will require some remediation.”

On Tuesday afternoon, local artist Sean Pace, who also operates a grading company, was using a track hoe to pull out a 16-foot welded steel sculpture he made out of the French Broad River Bank under the Capt. Jeff Bowen Bridge. It used to be mounted about 20 yards upstream, but Helene broke it off its base.

Pace calls the work, a bird with a cannon for a nose, “The EPA,” because “we don’t take care of our environment, so I was just making animals that could take care of their own environment.”

A former raft guide on the river, Pace said he’s observed the river from multiple vantage points since the storm, and watched the cleanup with interest. It does look way better now than last fall, he said, but the stretch through Asheville and to the north still has some dangers.

“There’s lots of like broken pieces of metal, scrap parts of cars that have gotten stuck,” Pace said. “You can’t imagine how much glass is in there, because it just gets rolled and rolled and rolled and makes smaller pieces. Obviously, there’s still a bunch of plastic in there.”

But that glass is the “number one pollutant” he worries about for river users. He recommends users wear closed-toe shoes, a recommendation Carson also advocated.

River advocate Marc Hunt, a former Asheville City Council member who is also a volunteer consultant on Woodfin’s ongoing kayaking wave project, said the river now “is generally cleaner” than it was before Helene.

“For the sections down through Asheville, my take is it’s just fine,” Hunt said. “When you get into Woodfin, there are still some pipes from IPEX that are stuck in the stream, in the riverbed, and I do have concerns that those might provide some safety risks — people getting snagged on one of those pipes.”

Silverline Plastics, owned by IPEX, manufactures plastic PVC pipe in a facility on the river that flooded badly in the storm, sending thousands of pipes downriver. The company launched a cleanup campaign last fall, but Hunt said work appears to have stalled.

IPEX spokesperson Anastasia Georgakakos said in early April, “We remain committed to actively securing and collecting any pipes and materials that washed off-property. This effort is ongoing and restoring the surrounding community remains a priority for us.”

Beyond the plastic piping, Hunt said it’s hard to know right now what might be buried in the riverbed or sunk in the banks. In the months after the storm, the river had a lighter color, and when the water was low it looked cleaner, he said, probably the effect of “scouring” from the storm.

“The strong current would have swept a lot of things downstream,” Hunt said. “You get river flow that’s that powerful, and it just tumbles everything it can along the bottom of the river, and it goes to Tennessee, too. So if we’re lucky, that will be the case — we’ll find a lot of the junk is scoured away, too.”

But right now, the French Broad is fairly high, and a little murky from clay and mud deposits from recents rainfall.

“Time will tell in terms of what might be left behind,” Hunt said. “And I think it’s going to require some low water, which again, typically happens later in the summer.”

More cleanup help may be on the way

Meanwhile, Carson said crews continue river cleanups, which include 12-person cleanup crews working in Buncombe, Henderson, Madison, and Transylvania counties. Additionally, MountainTrue has a crew of four or five on the ground on the Green River in Polk County, he said. 

“And then we’re hoping to get some state money, potentially millions of dollars, and ramp those crews up to maybe 150-plus people,” Carson said. “And throughout the whole watershed — Chimney Rock, Spruce Pine, Hot Springs, Asheville, Swannanoa. That bit of work that’s left to do, we’re certainly planning to address those issues (such as buried debris).”

Carson said that after Helene the state legislature passed “The Disaster Recovery Act of 2025,” which includes a provision that authorizes the North Carolina Office of State Budget Management to distribute $20 million “to state agencies and units of local government for debris and sedimentation removal unmet needs.”

The state’s Emergency Management office will assist Budget Management in “in coordinating the debris removal with relevant state agencies and local stakeholders,” the legislation states. “OSBM shall prioritize using these funds to address identified gaps in debris cleanup not met by other federal and state programs,” the bill states.

Carson feels MountainTrue is well-positioned to do the work.

“We’re making a case that we’ve been doing it, and we can do a lot more with more,” Carson said. “And I think we’re going to be successful. We’re putting folks that are out of work to work cleaning up our rivers, so we can save our rivers, but also save our outdoor economy. So, it’s a pretty good story, and kind of a win-win for everybody.”

Marcia Evans, communications director with the Office of State Budget and Management, said the process is ongoing.

“At this point, no funds have been disbursed, but we are nearing agreements with several agencies on their debris removal plans,” Evans said via email. “In some cases, these agencies will be contracting with other entities for the clean-up. While various organizations may be contracted to conduct some of the work, the contract would be with the agency receiving funds, not with OSBM.”

Under the legislation, the state has to “prioritize debris removal efforts that are not funded by other state or federal programs.

“We also need a Memorandum of Understanding in place that governs the funds disbursed and what work will be completed,” Evans said.

If MountainTrue can secure the funding, Carson said it would likely be a 12-month contract.

“I’d like to think in the first half of that, we’ll have a big chunk of it done,” Carson said. “We’ll focus on the sections that people recreate in first, and then we’ll spread out to the less-used sections. So I’d like to think that in that first part of that year, we would do all those popular sections where people tube and paddle.”

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Asheville Watchdog is a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and Buncombe County. John Boyle has been covering Asheville and surrounding communities since the 20th century. You can reach him at (828) 337-0941, or via email at jboyle@avlwatchdog.org. The Watchdog’s local reporting during this crisis is made possible by donations from the community. To show your support for this vital public service go to avlwatchdog.org/support-our-publication/.

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