Eric Romanisyne

Partial Transcript: I am Eric Romanisyne. I’m the executive director for Haywood Waterways Association. I’ve been with the organization since 2004, first as project manager, then became executive director in 2010. I have a background in aquatic entomology, and I don’t get to use it that much anymore, but once in a while, I do.

Partial Transcript: I grew up in Western Pennsylvania. I grew up—water is an important part of my life because where I grew up I had a stream next to my house. I was always in it looking for salamanders, looking for turtles, trying to catch fish. I’d stay out there all hours of the day. My mom would have to just about come get me to drag me inside to uh, to uh, get me out of it. But then just growing up I was always in it just fishing, boating, and decided to pursue a career in it, and I feel very fortunate to get paid to do a job around something that I love.

Partial Transcript: Haywood Waterways Association, we got started I believe back in 1994. It was one of the—start again here. Haywood Waterways Association started quite a while ago, about twenty years ago. We got—Haywood Waterways Association started about twenty years ago in 1998 where we received our incorporation status. And then in 1999 received our 501 (c)(3) status. However, the foundation for Haywood Waterways was a few years before that. From what I understand, back in 1994, there was a group up in Cruso area that was very inspired to clean up the garbage dump next to the river. And around that time there was the Richland Creek Action Committee wanted to do some water plot improvement projects along Richland Creek area. And then they kind of merged together when the Pigeon River Fund formed when the dam was realized down at Tennessee, North Carolina lines. So they kind of joined forces formed a organization and Haywood Waterways Association started then.

Partial Transcript: Haywood Waterways Association in the early days we had a number of issues to tackle, you know, along just with the challenge of forming a new organization and all that with getting organized. There’s also primarily a lot of focus on just trash; trash getting in our waterways, trash on the banks that would get blown into our waterways. So and there’s also the issue of funding, how do we get started to pay for staff and resources? So the founding fathers really donated a lot of their time and energy into taking care of those issues. One of the first things that was created was Pigeon River Watershed Action Plan, because without a plan, without some kind of focus it’s hard to get funding from foundations, from grant sources, from donors. So by generating a watershed action plan that clearly created a guiding force that we could follow for many years, and it’s still in use today. We update it every now and then with information, monitoring data, new partners, and everything we can.

Partial Transcript: Haywood Waterways activities—well at least back when I first started in 2004, a lot of it was focused on just some stream restoration work, working with farmers, working with urban areas just to cattle pop—I’m sorry. In the early days of Haywood Waterways when I started 2004 much of the focus was on helping Agricultural operations, fence livestock out of a stream, giving them water sources, giving them dedicated food areas and waste areas. And we’re also working with towns and some of their park systems to just do some simple stream restoration projects. You know a lot of the focus these days is on stormwater. You know, with growing populations and as our fostered previous landscape changes to impervious, there’re some challenges there. It’s how do we grow sustainably? How do we support the population that’s coming in and also take care of our environment and our water resources? And so by putting a lot of efforts into getting—doing some simple stormwater best management practices to collect and treat that stormwater, filter out the pollutants before it gets into their waterways we can have clean water as well as support a growing population.

Partial Transcript: We’ve seen several successes in Haywood County over the years. One of the ones that comes to mind is High Creek. High Creek was on the save list of impaired waterways. And back in 2006, we started a targeted watershed restoration effort which involved fencing livestock out of the stream, restoring stream banks, fixing failing septic systems. And about 2009, 2010, it came off that impaired waterways list. It’s very easy to go on the list, but it’s very hard to come off once it’s on the list.
Another success we’ve had is that fixing failing septic systems. During that High Creek restoration project the state had a program called WaDE, Wastewater Discharge Elimination, which was focused solely on helping very low and low-income households fix failing septic systems. Well, that program was cut from the state budget several years ago. But it was such a success that we wanted to keep it going. So we were able to secure funding from Pigeon River Fund and the community foundation, Tennessee Valley Authority gave us some funding, North Carolina 319 program gave us some funding to continue that program. Now, we don’t focus so much on the income levels, but more these proximity to the stream and the severity of issue because we don’t not finding straight pipes anymore, but we are finding, say a cracked septic tank that’s leaching to the surface and next rain storm is carrying it right to the waterway. And that’s pretty much the same as a straight pipe—the same effect. So in the nine, ten years, we’ve been doing that program we fixed about 140 septic systems. And I’m always amazed by this statistic that the environmental health department provided and that each repair eliminates about 360 gallons of untreated wastewater per day from getting in our streams. So do the math; 360 times 140 homes times 365 days a year. That's a lot of untreated water we’ve helped stop.
A recent—another one more last one give you some options to choose from. We’ve seen some success in our watershed restoration efforts here in Haywood County. Richland Creek, which was sitting here right next right now, is on the 303 (d) list of impaired waterways. It was on it for a few chloroform bacteria, as well as fish community. However, while their Free Sources Commission has been monitoring the fish populations in here, they’ve seen them surviving. So they decided to reintroduce a lot of the native fish that were here before they were wiped out from pollution. And they’ve been doing that for several years now. Follow-up monitoring has found them surviving as well as reproducing. It’s like the good marker that water quality’s improved. So just last year Richland Creek came off the impaired waterways for fish communities.

Partial Transcript: There are several challenges we still face here in Haywood County. It is becoming a growing population; people moving here due to the natural resources. It’s—have Western North Carolina close to Ashville. So there’s plenty of water—plenty of things to do. So just trying to grow on a sustainable amount. So just trying to grow on a sustainable manner. Haywood County’s unique in that we’re Headwater’s county, which means no water flows into the county. It only flows out, which puts us in a unique situation of having full control of how clean our water is. Now, that still leaves several challenges, ones that we face still today. One of the problems prominent is—one of the prominent challenges we face today is happens—trying to figure out how to put that into words. One of the biggest challenges we have today has to do with the population change. And it’s no surprise Haywood County is full of beautiful areas, waterfalls, Blue Ridge Parkway, Smoky Mountains National Park, The National Forest Service, it attracts a lot of people; not just visitors, but people who want to live here. So as the population changes and changes our landscape from rural agricultural to urban impervious surfaces we have a lot of challenges ahead of us dealing with stormwater and growing sustainably in a way that protects our natural resources. Those natural resources that not only support a diversity of wildlife but attract visitors here, attract a growing tourist economy, supports a lot of jobs. And, you know, it’s a challenge.
Another big challenge that we face in Haywood County, which I imagine would be a challenge throughout the south-east is just educating the public, educating the people. I think a lot of the issues are common wherever you go. But the solutions are not always as common. And I think it really begins with each one of us in our own homes in protecting our natural resources, protecting water quality. So just being able to educate the people on what the problems are, as well as what the solutions are; ones that they can do themselves, and if it’s something major, where they can go for help to find the technical resources as well as financial resources.

Partial Transcript: Yeah. I could probably come up with a bunch of stories enough time, but—We have one story in the High Creek Watershed Restoration Projects. We had gone on for a couple of years and done some livestock exclusion projects. And they’re some homeowners in the area that didn’t really have significant issues. Ones that least—at least one of the top of the list. But they were so inspired by what we were doing, understood why we were doing it that they took it upon themselves to fence their own small farms, fence their livestock away from the stream. And so while it wasn’t—they weren’t having a great impact on the stream, but just seeing that we were reaching someone in the public, inspiring them to do their own work, I think it’s a great success story.
A great story we have from our Kids in the Creek program, you know it’s a program where we get every eighth-grade student in the county out in the water learning about the organisms that live in the water, stormwater, and things they can do to help protect water quality. We had this one gentleman who wasn’t real active, according to his mom and didn’t really participate in things. But after going through Kids in the Creek program, and then afterwards we do this t-shirt design contest where every eighth-grade student gets a t-shirt as part of the program. And we started a design contest that would—one of the previous year students could design a piece of art put on the t-shirt that was inspired by the Kids in the Creek program. And this gentleman, this—sorry. And this person after going through “Kids in the Creek”, after creating the t-shirt design, and then he won the design contest, his mother said it changed his behavior like that. He wanted to come to school. He wanted to participate. He wanted to get outside. And I think that’s a great success story we have.

Partial Transcript: As part of our public affairs work, we try to reach people in all different ways. Everyone’s interested in the environment in some way; whether they like just being outside, going hunting, going fishing, just hiking, playing in the water, or they drink water, we need clean water for that. But a lot of folks are also interested in it from economic perspective. You know, a lot of the clean water, the recreational opportunities, paddling, fishing, it brings visitors here. It supports a growing tourism industry; not just for the guides that lead these people out, but also for the hotels, for the restaurants, for the gas stations. You know people come here need those products as part of their trips. Now in Western North Carolina, there's been a lot of focus on beer and distilling spirits. And of course, you need clean water to make great beer. And so we always say a lot. And so throughout Western North Carolina just the beer tourism industry, I haven’t seen any statistics on it yet. But I imagine it’s pretty high. Now, these other values that we see—let’s see. Some of the other—let me think.

Partial Transcript: There is a growing green economy in Western North Carolina, and one of the focus areas is on trout fishing. And Wildlife Resources Commission did a study a few years ago that found that the trout fishing industry brought in about $380 million and supported about three jobs in Western North Carolina. Now that grew from about 180 million and two thousand jobs not just a few years before that when they did their first study. So you see that there’s a definitely a growing interest in recreation and tourism, fishing, and that.

Partial Transcript: It is very important to be a good steward of our rivers and streams. Number one, because we all need clean water every part of our lives—when we wake up in the morning, to make our coffee, drink our orange juice, when we go to bed at night, brushing our teeth—we need clean water every part—and most of our bodies, of course, about seventy-five percent are water. But, you know, clean water supports a great part of the economy; through recreation, through tourism. You need clean water to grow safe crops. Industry—a lot of industries around here need clean water. So it supports a tremendous number of jobs. It really creates a very dynamic community. And it brings people together as well. How many parks do we have here that are situated right on the water? How many late night concerts on stages right next to water. How many people—how many green waves do we have right next to water? See and see water brings people together, brings communities together, and is an important part of really all of our lives

Partial Transcript: To my hopes and dreams for the future of Haywood Waterways Association are if we could get all sixty thousand residents of Haywood County to be members of Haywood Waterways. That would be a great dream come true. And of course, improving all our waterways to get those that are on the impaired waterways list to get them off. But I think really the most important I think is just getting the community, getting the public, serving a greater interest, greater buy-in to clean water. So long term down the road maybe we do get sixty thousand members. Maybe we do get 100 percent clean water.