Cleaning up flood-trashed French Broad River with love, ’a spoonful at a time’
For about 5 miles, the French Broad River churns through a maze of boulders, bubbling into rapids that are both hair-raising and safe for an 8-year old — so popular that the whitewater guides nicknamed all their favorite spots: The Big Pillow, The Pinball, The Roller-coaster.
Recognized as one of the world’s oldest rivers, so ancient it flows north, the French Broad ranks among Western North Carolina’s top attractions — especially here in Madison County, where three major outfitters can each carry 150 thrill-seekers a day in peak season.
Along this run, guides will typically dump their passengers out of the raft and let them tumble over a small waterfall called Swimmer’s Rapid. After that, they can float on their backs in the dark green water and spot a bald eagle on a lucky day.
But in late September, remnants of Hurricane Helene sent a 24-foot wall of water through this remote sanctuary, grabbing everything in its path and scattering it like trash from an overturned dumpster.
The challenge of an epic cleanup remains.
▪ At the park near Marshall where hundreds of boaters launch daily, Helene took a shipping container and wrapped it around a bridge piling. Four months after the storm, it still hangs there like an old bandage, collecting a tangle of black plastic pipe.
▪ A few miles downriver, Helene yanked out what used to be forest and left 20-foot logjams stacked along the banks on both sides of the river. A mashed refrigerator sits on top. Strips of blue plastic wave like handkerchiefs from the branches.
▪ Along the riverbank, Helene deposited a barrel marked flammable liquid, a propane cylinder and a dented white tank the size of a pickup that nobody can identify.
“It’s trashed,” said Jon Stamper, river cleanup coordinator for the nonprofit Mountain True. “I found a 50-gallon oil drum full of oil the other day. No lid on it. Somehow still had oil in it. Stuffed animals and creepy baby dolls, there’s a lot of those. I’ve found driver’s licenses.
“It’s an amazing beautiful stretch of river,” he continued. “I’ve got a spoonful-at-a-time attitude.”
Collecting 150,000 pounds of trash from the river
In December, Mountain True launched a pilot program aimed at pulling the jumble of trash out of North Carolina rivers in time for tourist season, maybe saving thousands of jobs.
Using private donations, the nonprofit pays professional river guides to hand-pick debris off boulders sunk in class 2 rapids, to cut the coils of plastic pipe wrapped around trees like kudzu, and to tote out what they can inside rubber rafts.
In the French Broad alone, they’ve collected 150,000 pounds — all by hand and raft.
“There’s places where there’s chunks of foam and there’s places where there’s no foam,” said Fritz Johnson, co-owner of Blue Heron Whitewater, a major supply donor for the cleanup. “There’s places where there’s tons of pipe and there’s places where there’s no pipe. I wish I was a hydrologist and knew why things landed where they did.”
Remarkably, the French Broad is still navigable, being wider and more powerful than the Swannanoa, which is choked with upside-down cars around Biltmore Village in Asheville.
Even more surprising, the nonprofit’s soil and water testing shows low levels of pollution — nothing to cause alarm.
But after a month, Mountain True’s workers have picked through roughly half a 5-mile stretch of a single river, and they’ve used up half their funding. To clear more trash on more rivers, they’ll need state money, federal funding and more donations.
So far, much of the debris they’ve collected lies piled on the banks — not a pleasant site for a rafting trip. This remote stretch of Madison County offers almost no road access to the river, and if Mountain True is going to ferry out all the nastiness, they’ll need access to the single Norfolk Southern railroad track that runs along the bank.
“For lot of people, this is the only outdoor adventure they’ve ever had,” Stamper said. “You’re looking for this pristine river experience and what you’re getting is what we’ve got out here. We can go down this river. Nobody knows how many people will want to.”
Helene changed river access points, affected jobs
A former Marine, Stamper fell into river life after his service in Afghanistan, and he spent 12 years learning the French Broad better than his own driveway.
On an icy January paddle, he showed off favorite landmarks around the river, pointing out the spots guides have lovingly named:
▪ “Jump-off Rock,” where rafters climb a natural diving board and plunge into deep green water;
▪ “Turtle Rock,” which resembles its namesake reptile;
▪ “Pinball Island,” a large chunk of granite named for the ricochet technique required to navigate the rapids.
“Officially, this is Sandy Bottom Rapid,” he said, shooting down a class 2. “But we call it The Roller-coaster.”
When Helene hit, it washed away the outfitter where Stamper worked, so he knows from deep experience how many people depend on Blue Ridge rivers for their livelihood. He guesses 75 outfitters take tourists down the rapids, and hundreds more take them trout fishing or rock climbing.
For example, one married couple working French Broad cleanup with Stamper normally operates the Laurel River Store, a Madison County outpost that offers coffee, espresso, tea and all the gear a paddler might need.
Jemima and Matt Cook keep a gauge outside the store, and they field phone calls all summer from kayakers wanting to know how high the water is running. On top of that, Matt Cook guides novice fisher folk to secret spots along Big Laurel Creek.
“He does fly-fishing, spin-fishing, smallmouth and muskie in the French Broad,” Jemima Cook said. “But since Helene, his access points have changed. Landmarks are gone. Whole islands got completely decapitated. There’s some parts that don’t look at all the same. You can’t put people in the water. You can’t take someone out there and say, ‘I know for sure this is a good idea’ when you don’t know it’s the same river you saw last time.”
On top of that, Matt Cook said, you might come across random pieces of metal or rocks that got sharpened underwater. He lamented recently cutting a 3-foot hole in their boat.
While the flooding and the landslides spared Laurel River Store, the storm did tear off the roof. So the Cooks spent their day on the French Broad banks, picking trash off the rocks. They offered their inflatable jet boat to help haul it out, which excited Stamper.
“It’s critical to get guides back to work,” he said. “It’s a lot of jobs.”
French Broad is older than the mountains
The French Broad is so ancient that it predates the Eastern Continental Divide and defiantly flows to the northeast.
It supports black bears, beavers, otters, salamanders, great blue heron and, every year from March to October, thousands of families on vacation, eager for a cool splash.
It has weathered floods before, most recently in 1960. At the end of the 5-mile run, rebar still juts from the water as a remnant of a washed-out dam.
With time, money and attention, the French Broad that North Carolina loves will return.
“It’s still an absolutely gorgeous river,” Stamper said. “It’s just gonna need some care for a while. One spoonful at a time.”
How to contribute to Helene recovery efforts
Contributions to Mountain True’s Helene recovery efforts can be made to www.mountaintrue.org/mountainstrong.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The original version of this story was modified to better reflect what’s known with certainty about the age of the world’s oldest rivers, including the French Broad River.
This story was originally published February 18, 2025 at 9:02 AM.