Hartwell Carson

Partial Transcript: I’m Hartwell Carson. I’m the French Broad RiverKeeper, and I work for a regional non-profit called Mountain True, but I’m also affiliated with a global non-profit Water WaterKeeper Alliance which is the umbrella group for all the RiverKeepers, Sound Keepers, Bay Keepers around the globe.

Partial Transcript: Yeah, I think the easiest way to describe a RiverKeeper’s role is that we’re the kind of the watch dog and the eyes and ears for our waterways. So, folks throughout the world are out monitoring their water, they’re checking on problem sites, they’re the folks that are really the first responders to what the river needs and they’re the squeaky wheel that helps fix whatever pollution ails their waterway.

Partial Transcript: Yeah, our biggest issues are sediment and bacteria. Bacteria is a fancy name for poop. We get poop from animal waste, and we get it from human waste. We get it from septic, agricultural runoff.. And we get sediment from construction sites, agriculture, and stream bank erosion.

So we are fortunate in that we have a fairly clean river that has come a long way from when Wilma Dykeman said that it was “too thick to drink and too thin to plow.” But we still have a lot of challenges. I mean, we don’t meet the goals of the Clean Water Act to be fishable and swimable, particularly after a rain event when bacteria levels spike and sediment levels spike, and that’s what we’re working to fix to hopefully, all the time the river can be fishable and swimable.

Partial Transcript: Yeah, in some ways it has changed a lot over time, in other ways it hasn’t. You know, you’ll hear old-timers say the river’s always been muddy after a rain event, and that’s kind of true. It used to be muddy from logging – wide-spread logging operations. Now it’s muddy from construction. It’s not really supposed to turn chocolate milk after a rain event, but it does, and it has for a long time. But in a lot of ways it’s different, you know. We certainly weren’t, you know, a hundred years ago, concerned about urban development, and that is a big concern now. Sewerage was probably a much smaller contributor to pollution impacts than it used to be, but that’s certainly a concern now. You know, Ag has probably been a big contributor for a long time and still is a big contributor. So there’s a lot that hasn’t changed and a lot that has.

When you look over a long period of time people will say the river is so much cleaner than it used to be, and that’s true. The passage of the Clean Water Act, the work of the State, the work of non-profits, local municipalities has brought the river from - you know – if you came here 15 years ago it would be extremely rare to see anyone recreating on the French Broad, and now if you come here on a Saturday there are hundreds, if not thousands, of people recreating on the river.

So we have come a long way, but –you know- in the last ten or plus years I wouldn’t say the river has gotten necessarily cleaner, and we would like to see that trend continue.

Partial Transcript: Yeah, people’s perception is interesting for the French Broad. It kind of depends on who you are and how long you’ve been here. A lot of old timers say “I’d never swim in that river; that river’s dirty.” ‘Cause they remember the river in the 40’s and 50’s and 60’s, when they were right – you shouldn’t have swum in the river back then. A lot of new people – they don’t know the history of the French Broad. They just see all their friends going tubing and boating and that’s what you do. That’s really helped our work. Honestly, the amount of people that recreate on the river. When they post a sewage spill warning like is posted here, people really care about that. There’s a lot of interest when folks say the French Broad is not safe for swimming.

Partial Transcript: So a lot of what we do is monitor our waterway. And we do that so we can educate the public about what the issues are. We have a website we contribute to called the Swim Guide which shows folks how clean or dirty the river is in terms of bacteria pollution. But we do more than just educate the public about what those issues are. You know, we use that data to do intensive follow-up monitoring to determine where those sources are from. So we’re at the – near the mouth of Hominy Creek here. We have a - currently have an intensive effort monitoring Hominy Creek to determine where the inflows of sewage or septic or animal waste are coming from. We’ve found a couple of those problems, but we’re- there’s a lot more to be found. So we continue to do that, and depending upon what the problems are, it depends on - you know - the solution. A Sewer Lake’s great, we call they fix it - same day. Agriculture’s a lot, you know - tougher nut to crack where we have to use some more of the tools in the tool box to pressure folks or to work with Soil & Water or to get the State Department of Environmental Quality involved, so there’s a whole range of ways that you try to clean up your waterway.

Partial Transcript: Yeah, so we’ve been involved in a number of different campaigns. I mean, probably our biggest advocacy campaign was around coal ash and energy use. That involved the Duke Power plant which sits on the banks of the French Broad River. For decades and decades they stored their coal ash in unlined holes in the ground. Which coal ash is a toxic byproduct of burning ash, burning coal. That pollutes the groundwater; the ground water pollutes the river. The dams have seeps in them; the earthen dams seep into the rivers. Which is full of a variety of toxic heavy metals. It’s really an irresponsible way to store toxic waste.

But Duke’s not an easy entity to move. It requires a lot of public pressure; it requires a lot of advocacy from the local and state level. We initiated legal action against Duke in numerous different venues. And at some point we decided it wasn’t just enough to clean up coal ash pollution; we needed them stop burning coal altogether. So we created a bigger advocacy campaign. We partnered with the Sierra Club to force Duke to move toward clean energy and retire the coal plant.

And we were successful on both of those fronts. And it was a multi-pronged, multi-year effort that was local politics, state politics, legal action, rallies, public pressure, you sort of name it. We threw everything we had. But ultimately that worked. Duke’s the largest utility in the country. But we moved the needle here and forced them to clean up their toxic waste and forced them to move toward clean energy. Not as far of a move as we would have liked, but definitely a move in the right direction.

Partial Transcript: So, you want to know like my honest answer, or do you want to know, like, the answer everybody gives? (laughs) The honest answer may not make the film! Honestly, I don’t know how much of a legacy Wilma Dykeman had. I know that Riverlink promoted Wilma Dykeman heavily. I think what she did in her chapter in her book, The French Broad, was courageous at the time, but I don’t know how much that moved the needle in 1955 so have one chapter in a book saying that the French Broad was polluted. I mean, everybody knew the French Broad was polluted. I mean, the needle really didn’t move and I don’t know how much of a role she played in this, until you passed significant legislation like the Clean Water Act. That is really when the needle moved toward cleaning up the French Broad. But, I mean, you needed people that supported that effort. And I’ve taken a revisionist history on things that Riverlink said and tried to filter them through my own lens to see how much of them I think are true. And I guess the answer is: I really don’t know. I took whatever was told to me from Riverlink perspective for a long time as truth. And now I’m trying to figure out how much of that’s really true or not.

See, probably there are plenty of people in here saying that Wilma Dykeman was the greatest woman ever. I just – she was kind of before my time, to be honest with you; so really all I know is what former Riverlink people told me, and I don’t know how much of that is true. (Laughs) That’s probably not what I want in the film, (laughing) but that is sort of my honest answer.

Partial Transcript: Yeah, I do think that’s probably a quote I can honestly say. I do think the passage of the Clean Water Act and that kind of landmark legislation wouldn’t have happened without people like Wilma Dykeman, because politicians are not courageous people in general. They do what the - how the people steers them, and people like Wilma Dykeman all around the country were demanding to have their waterways cleaned up. The Cayuga River was catching on fire; Lake Erie was considered biologically dead. The fish in the Hudson River tasted like diesel fuel, and people around the country just like Wilma Dykeman were angry and they demanded action. And politicians followed suit. And, it’s pretty impressive in this day and age to have a piece of legislation like the Clean Water Act that not only address the issue but have real teeth in it. It said we’re gonna eliminate pollutants discharged to surface waters. That’s pretty bold, big step, and it definitely wouldn’t happen without the public putting pressure on politicians to do that. And it was vetoed by Richard Nixon, and the veto was overridden. So it’s impressive to pass any kind of legislation in this day and age much less something pro-environment that really addresses the issues at hand.

Partial Transcript: That’s a good .. I always … I think it was a big Democrat majority, but I’m not … ‘Cause Nixon… I always used to say, like “Richard Nixon signed the Clean Water Act,” As if it were this bi-partisan thing. Then later on he vetoed it, and he got overridden. I think he got overridden by a bunch of Democrats, which – I like the bi-partisan story better, but I’m not sure if it’s true. I should go look.

Partial Transcript: See I don’t know a lot of that Wilma Dykeman history, I just know – and this probably the part I don’t – I just know like whatever Karen told me, and then I was like I was like I need to not trust (laughs) whatever I was told back then. So, I’m sure she was probably as badass of a lady as I was told, but I don’t know that for certain. She was kind of phased out as I started, so I never really met her or worked with her.

Partial Transcript: I think one of the biggest benefits of being a Riverkeeper is the Riverkeeper community. I mean, there are a lot of really amazing folks that do a lot of really amazing work and put themselves on the front lines. I think the recent hurricanes of Hurricane Matthew and Florence in North Carolina are really good examples of where we know we are going to have pollution impacts, and the Riverkeepers are out there documenting what those are. And sometimes in pretty harrowing circumstances. I mean, there are Riverkeepers in eastern North Carolina that literally have their homes underwater, but are out every day in boats documenting pollution from coal ash and hog lagoons. And you could say, Well – it was a historic flood. What could we have done? But there’s a lot of obvious things that we knew were going to happen when you store hog waste in unlined holes in the ground, and you store coal ash in unlined holes in the ground IN the flood plain. When it floods, those hog lagoons are going to overflow; they’re going to breach; they’re going to overtop, and we’re going to have the same problems we’ve been having over and over and over again.

And those are going to get worse. I mean, Hurricane Matthew and Hurricane Florence were historic storms that happened within a two-year time frame of each other. That’s only going to increase as climate change contributes to the strength and severity of storms. So now’s the time to react to that. We need to move hog lagoons out of the flood plains. We need to come up with 20th century technology that how we’re going to deal with animal waste and how we’re going to deal with pollution problems from energy production that doesn’t involve unlined holes in the flood plain.

Partial Transcript: I think I know the answers to those, but I’m not certain enough to say it. There is a good - I did read something the other night from Waterkeeper Alliance that had their list of numbers they think have overtopped, and then DEQ has their list, too. I think there’s 3300 in the state, but I’m not certain of that. Is that what you’ve heard, too? Yeah. So, I mean, I can say, so there are thousands of hog lagoons in the state of North Carolina, and all of those are cesspools of hog waste. Literally, the hogs are confined – thousands of hogs at a time are confined in these barns, and their waste is flushed out into these big, unlined holes in the ground, and that is the waste storage technology. That waste is then sprayed onto fields to use as fertilizer, but often that is done irresponsibly. That runs off; it gets into our waterways. It’s certainly not the most updated technology and really the proper way we should be doing this. If we’re going to have -– really, large scale animal operations are doomed to fail, but there are improvements that can be made if we’re going to do it in this factory-farming setting which is what North Carolina has become.

Partial Transcript: I know they’re full of nasty, nasty stuff. The hogs are injected with medicine, antibiotics … But hog waste – I mean, hogs – they’re -- I wish I could – do you know the -- do your remember the number? There’s a number of hogs in North Carolina. There’s more -- something like “There’s more hogs than people.” There’s some catchy – number that I can’t remember. Yeah. There’s hundreds of thousands of hogs in North Carolina, and hogs produce a tremendous amount of waste. That waste has been in these last storms flushed into our waterways, often upstream of drinking water sources. So I mean, it’s a --it’s a real concern, and it’s only going to happen -- continue to happen if we don’t update our technologies and improve our environmental practices.

Partial Transcript: I mean, there is a number of lagoons overtopped, a couple of them – there is a number, I can’t remember though, of these two lagoons that they found that literally the dam just busted and the whole entire lagoon emptied into the river. There was a number on those that I saw, but I don’t remember what that was. And I don’t think they even know yet. I mean, the river is still rising, and that kind of dates it …. But, the Cape Fear River, I think as of yesterday, I’m not even sure it had peaked yet, so … I don’t think the – and it’s still, you know, rising in South Carolina, too. So, I don’t think the full extent of the environmental damage will be known for quite a while.

Partial Transcript: Coal ash is full of toxic heavy metals. It’s not something you want in your waterway. Unfortunately, power plants were built next to waterways because they needed the water as their cooling water source. So, these things have been set up to fail for a long time. And the best technology they could come up with decades ago was to build a hole in the ground and dump the toxic waste into the hole in the ground. That has created a lot of problems that we’ve come across. The Lee Power Plant, which we’ve paddled over one of their coal ash ponds, was completely under water. They say it’s capped, but it’s not capped; it’s just – it’s full of coal ash. It is an old, a very old lagoon, and trees have actually grown on top of it, but when the water rushes over it, that coal ash is just flushed right into the Neuse River. And that’s a similar situation in other sites around the state. But even when it’s not flooded, and it’s flushed into the river in such a dramatic fashion, we know that it’s polluting the ground water and the river all day, every day in every site in North Carolina. Now, they are cleaning up some of the sites, but some of those are not clean. We’ve been pushing very hard to get them to clean up the Cliffside site down in Rutherford County, and Duke is refusing. They’re sticking with their company line that leaving it in place is the safest method. And we think digging it up and moving it to a lined landfill away from waterways makes the most sense, but we still have yet to convince Duke that that’s the way to go forward.

So we’ve made a lot of progress on coal ash in North Carolina, but there’s still a long way to go. And the recent floods and coal ash problems show we have a long way to go. I mean, we should be past the point where we’re documenting coal ash spills into rivers on a regular basis.

Partial Transcript: I mean, in South Carolina, Santee Cooper - which is the utility there - they have been much more proactive than Duke. You know, when they were faced with the opportunity to dig up their coal ash and move it to a landfill, they were pretty willing to do that. They recently had a coal ash spill in South Carolina, and instead of doing everything they could to obstruct folks from finding out what was happening and bending the truth in their favor, they took the Riverkeeper on the site and showed them what the issues were and showed them where they could improve. And that was a site that was, you know, 80-90% dug up because Santee Cooper was proactive to begin with. So, I mean, just down the road there is a better example of how to deal with coal ash. Now they made the same mistake Duke made originally, but when they were confronted with their mistake, they are addressing it in a pretty responsible manner.

I do know – I don’t know all the details about hog waste – but I know that in all these recent lawsuits that they have been presented with a lot of improved technology. One of the things I think they do in the Chesapeake is they use drip irrigation. So instead of taking hog waste and spraying it with a sprinkler all over the land, they drip that into the field which is much more likely to be soaked in and not run off, and much less likely to blow hog waste in the wind onto your neighbor’s property. It decreases smell. That’s a pretty simple technology that Smithfield and their giant company are unwilling to implement. And I don’t know why other than maybe it’ll cost ‘em a little bit of money.

I mean, I know it’s gotta cost money, but at the same time, how much money is, like, drip irrigation? We’re not talking about – we’re not talking about building a wastewater plant, which maybe we should be talking about. But, we’re talking about a hose with holes in it. I mean, I would think that’s cheaper than a big sprinkler! But, I’m sure it’s money or they would do it. And maybe just they’re already invested in this spray technology, so converting it would be ….

Partial Transcript: I mean, the – most of the stuff is driven by consumer habits, you know. As people choose non-factory farms for pork and chicken, the industry responds. They’re just like politicians. They move at the whim of the public. I mean, you see chicken now that routinely tout “No Antibiotics!” That was not something those companies decided to do on their own. That’s something the public demanded. So, I really think that’s probably the biggest role the public can play is picking environmentally friendly – you know – a lot of people would say there’s certainly a level of being vegan or vegetarian, but if you are going to eat meat, picking the you know sustainable, environmental…. There’s a lot of good options, particularly here in Western North Carolina. Other places aren’t as blessed with good, sustainable, environmental meat options as we are. That certainly will move the meat over time. That’s where the public goes, that’s where the companies will go.

Partial Transcript: I mean, we’re blessed here in Western North Carolina because the value of the environment is pretty obvious to most people. We have a lot of folks who come here to fish, to swim, to paddle, to hike, I mean, it’s pretty clear to most people that we need to protect our environment – not just for the environment’s sake but for the almighty dollar. In other places they’re not as blest. I mean, it’s a little more subtle, the value of clean water. But it’s pretty easy here. When you have thousands of people floating the river every weekend, and you have thousands of people fishing. Trout fishing is a several hundred million dollar industry here. And trout are a sensitive species. They don’t live in polluted water. They don’t live in warm water. It is a species that needs cold, clean water to survive, and it’s providing a lot of jobs here in Western North Carolina. So it’s a pretty easy connection to make.

But it is surprising – not everyone gets it, for sure. A lot of folks are holding out for the next great industry to create jobs here in Western North Carolina when the outdoor recreation industry is creating hundreds, if not thousands, of jobs here. And that’s really what people are coming here for; that’s where the jobs are. That’s what the industry is here.

Partial Transcript: Yeah, I mean, we’re blessed with lot of great breweries. There’s a lot of great beer in Western North Carolina, and a lot of those breweries have located here specifically for the clean water. Sierra Nevada and New Belgium, two of the biggest breweries in the country, sited the environment and the clean water as key values that they thought about when they moved into Western North Carolina.

It’s benefited me greatly because I like their beer, but it’s also a great thing to have on the banks of the French Broad River (is) environmentally sensitive companies that are protecting our environment but also creating a great product and are creating jobs.