Over the last few months, Maconians have sounded the alarm on what they see as excessive debris removal in the county’s waterways. Now, as the cleanup effort wraps up, citizens are maintaining pressure, urging elected officials to learn from the debacle and institute safeguards for the future. 

By this point, more than six months after Hurricane Helene barreled through Western North Carolina, it’s a common sight. Heavy machinery moving in and around waterways, working to remove debris that choked rivers and streams during extreme flooding caused by the storm. 

The four-state mountain region that includes Great Smoky Mountains National Park is home to an estimated 14,500 black bears, but one particular animal had caught the attention of a watchful police chief in one of the park’s gateway communities.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced a proposal to list the eastern hellbender as an endangered species throughout its range under the Endangered Species Act. Eastern hellbenders are found in Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. 

I’ve been getting bogged down a lot this year. I don’t mean that I’ve been in a quagmire or morass necessarily, but I’ve been slogging through some incredibly beautiful wetland ecosystems in the mountains and throughout the southeastern US. 

I’ve been bog stomping. 

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to cut it up and use it for heat or timber, is it a waste of resources? Or, put another way, are humans the only reason that all other life on Earth was created?

Under the gray, misty November sky covering Panthertown Valley near Cashiers, we swish through shin-deep leaves in search of hemlock trees. 

Experience the hemlock trees growing at the historic Cradle of Forestry in America during a hike starting at 10 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 4.

Haywood Community College students are learning best management practices to reduce stormwater runoff by using the campus itself as laboratory, hoping to restore natural hydrology wherever possible as the campus grows and changes.

Preston Jacobsen, a sustainability analyst, said the campus has had a negative effect on Jones Cove Creek, which is the recipient of runoff from parking lots and other campus facilities. Sophomore students in the LID curriculum — which currently has en enrollment of 17 students — are using bioretention ponds and native plant research as part of their graduation project.

In the long run, the plan is for the project to mitigate the impact of development on the campus’s natural hydrology and native plant communities. Jacobsen said students will establish a “test meadow” of native grasses on a campus construction site to serve as a demonstration for converting lawn or forest to meadow, reducing landscaping maintenance needs and creating wildlife habitats on campus.

Jacobsen applied for and received a Greenforce Initiative Innovation Mini-Grant to help fund the project. HCC is one of only five community colleges in North Carolina to receive the grant. The Greenforce Initiative wants to create green career pathways leading to postsecondary credentials and family sustaining careers; increase access and success for lower-skilled adults; and use campus “greening” or sustainability efforts as “learning laboratories” for education and training.

Jacobsen said the grant is not driving the project at HCC, but that part of his job is seek out ways to bring money and investments to the college that will funnel back to students.

“Part of my responsibility is to enhance our instruction, so finding funds via grants or for our instructions to get professional development, the end goal is that it all that funnels back to what our students learn,” said Jacobsen.

The co-mingling of classroom learning and on-campus sustainability is part of HCC’s mission, said Jacobsen.

“Our overarching theme here is to have a living laboratory. If we can give students hands-on experience, whether in a lab or with a physical project on campus, this is part of that mission set forth by (HCC President) Dr. Rose Johnson,” he said.

“We’re working with the Fish and Wildlife program to research native plants to see which will propagate best here, and then apply what we learn to our bioretention cells,” said Jacobsen.

HCC has become a leader in green initiatives and is the only community college in North Carolina that offers a degree in low-impact development major.

“We face a major challenge to retool and rebuild our workforce and meet the challenges of the future clean energy economy,” said Lisa Madry, Campus Field Director for the National Wildlife Federation. “The Greenforce Initiative will help accelerate America’s ability to tackle the climate crisis while creating economic opportunities and pathways out of poverty.”

“Students will earn real world experience through design, implementation and environmental monitoring of the funded project,” said Jacobsen. “All the while, they’ll be improving our campus through the restoration of native plant communities and enhancement of natural hydrology.”

Richland Creek is now teaming with new inhabitants raised by Haywood County students in classroom fish tanks.

After feeding and caring for the fish all year, the students set them free last week as part of an effort to restore native species to the creek that courses through Waynesville.

During the streamside field day, students explored water quality, performing many of the same tests on creek water they had on the aquariums in the class, such as measuring the pH and the temperature.

“The best way for kids to learn about the environment and ecology of streams is to actually get in the water,” said Bill Eaker, a board member with Haywood Waterways Association, which has worked on the project. “They remember a lot more from hands-on activities than sitting in the classroom.”

Biologists with the N.C. Division of Water Quality used nets to dredge aquatic critters from the creek and lay them out for inspection.

“What lives in the stream is an indication of how clean the water is,” Eaker said as the students sifted through rocks and sticks for a crayfish.

As part of their experiments, the students pulled up buckets of creek water to observe how much sediment was in the stream.

“What does the water run through on its way to the creek?” Mark Ethridge, a science teacher at Tuscola, posed to the students. “The ground.”

While it might seem obvious, Ethridge was working up to an “ah-hah” moment, one that would help students realize how a watershed works.

“You see those mountains over there?” Ethridge asked, pointing to the ridges that ring Waynesville. “When it rains on those mountains it all washes down and ends up right here.”

Ethridge explained how rare it is that in Haywood County all the water that flows through the county originate here, making it one of the few places that has complete control its own destiny when it comes to water quality.

To support clean water and water quality education in Haywood County, become a member or donate to Haywood Waterways Association. www.haywoodwaterways.org