The Economic Case for Rainwater Management

The popularity of our region continues to grow, with residents and visitors alike putting greater pressure on our natural resources. The latest report by Tourism Economics shows Buncombe County had a record-breaking 13.9 million tourists visiting in 2023, an increase from 13.6 million in 2022 and 12.5 million in 2021. Yet visitors represent a powerful economic engine in many WNC communities, as they have for several generations now—attracted to the beauty of the terrain, the temperate climate, the tumbling waters, and the rich cultural heritage.

The French Broad River—one of the oldest rivers in the world, once a significant resource and transit corridor for the Cherokee, and now an economic driver worth some $3.8 billion to the WNC economy—has been classified as “Impaired” by the NC Department of Environmental Quality for fecal coliform bacteria and a vastly reduced freshwater stream community. So have most of her tributaries in the urban stretch of 19 miles of her mainstem near Asheville.

What does “Impaired” mean?

Rivers and streams are invaluable for wildlife, recreation, drinking water, and more. Waterways are considered impaired when their chemical, physical, or biological aspects can no longer support their use without negative impact on the user(s). To learn more about the variety of local impairments that may impact you, please visit https://mywaterway.epa.gov/

Unmitigated stormwater is the leading source of pollution and the greatest threat to water quality in the French Broad and her tributaries. Setting aside industrial discharges—pollution the Clean Water Act helps control—the problem arises when rain flows over hardened surfaces, picking up pollutants including oil and gas, herbicides, fertilizer, and other contaminants. Soil-disturbing activities promote erosion and sediment flow. In urban areas, polluted runoff is collected in gutters, drains and pipes where it is directed untreated into streams that flow to the French Broad. In more rural communities, it perks from failing septic systems and contaminates local streams on their way to the river.

Did You Know?

The bulk of Asheville’s drinking water is sourced from the forested mountains above Swannanoa. Its secondary water source—the Mills River—runs through a more developed landscape and requires additional treatment. Consumers pay for the additional filtering, chemical additives, and treatment with ozone and granular activated carbon that is not needed for the forested source of water. With green infrastructure, these services are provided within the landscape.

With so many distributed sources to consider, it’s clear that all of us have a role to play in restoring and protecting our flowing waters as economic, recreational and environmental treasures. Thankfully, the actions residents and businesses can take to reverse this state of affairs are well-tested and often inexpensive to implement.

Green infrastructure is a group of nature-based solutions to manage stormwater and protect waterways. These solutions come in many shapes and sizes based on location, site constraints and opportunities. RiverLink offers a host of resources that all focus on the basic strategy of allowing your rainwater to slow down and soak in onsite. Both residents and businesses can get involved by taking actions such as moving a downspout, installing a rain garden, or setting up more complex systems. These efforts can be made in any setting, whether it’s a crowded urban area or a more open suburban or rural location.

Rivers and streams are more than the water transported. In the same way that the blood in your body transports oxygen, nutrients, and waste to serve the systems in your body, rivers and streams transport oxygen, nutrients, material/litter, and sediment. This transportation is not only natural but also necessary to support life—but it creates problems where pollutants are introduced. For example, if the turbidity of a stream is expected to stay below 50 NTU (nephelometric turbidity units), the increase of turbidity seen during a significant storm event could be compared to an increase in blood sugar. At 180 mg/dL blood sugar you would need to be concerned; 300 mg/dL would be dangerous. At 600 mg/dL you would need to seek medical attention. In a similar way, our waters are screaming for help.

Water is arguably the most important natural resource—we haven’t figured out a way to live without it—and the region’s economy has quite literally been built on the backbone of the French Broad River. Our community has an extraordinary opportunity to work together and clean up the river enough to remove its “Impaired” classification. This is our moment in the ancient river’s history; there is simply too much at stake not to act. As native historian and author Wilma Dykeman put it, “just as the river belongs to no one, it belongs to everyone, and everyone is held accountable for its health and condition.”

The North Caroline turbidity standard for freshwater streams says our waterways should not exceed 50 NTU. On average, the French Broad flirts with a level of 10 NTU, but largely exceeds this limit with major storms. With a recent stormevent on September 17, 2024 the French Broad reached a maximum turbidity level of 389 FNU (roughly exchangeable units for NTU) and did not return to the biologically acceptable level until September 21. Although pulses of sediment are natural with storm events, both the rate of this amount of soil runoff and frequency of deposits impairs the streams to a degree that the river cannot support its full diversity of native plants and animals.

So the next time you notice the French Broad flowing chocolate brown after a heavy rain, think of Wilma’s words: “Pollution is not the price we have to pay for securing industry in our midst, or building great cities. We can have industry, and we can have towns and we can have clean water. Filth is the price we pay for apathy.”

Amen, sister. Let’s do this.