Deep into the general-election ballot, far below the choices for president, for Congress, for the North Carolina cabinet, for the General Assembly, for a plethora of judges, for county commission and the Register of Deeds, eventually you’ll come to an office whose purpose may be a puzzle:

Buncombe Soil and Water Conservation District Supervisor.

Don’t skip the line. This government service may be the most overlooked and under-appreciated choice you’ll make. And in the devastating wake of Helene, the winner may exert extraordinary influence toward Buncombe County’s recovery. 

The Soil and Water Conservation Service can be the source of millions of federal and state dollars. And the practices it implements may be critical in helping the region avoid or withstand such destruction in the future.

The good news is that you don’t need to feel pressure in marking the ballot. The campaign (if you can call it that) is between two well-qualified candidates who know and speak admiringly about each other. 

Imagine that: a choice between good (Stuart Rohrbaugh) and good (Blair Thompson).

“His credentials are pretty amazing,” Rohrbaugh said of Thompson, the manager of Warren Wilson College’s extensive farming operations in Swannanoa. “You talk about somebody who’s well qualified…”

And Thompson said of Rohrbaugh, a retired land and development planner for many local governments in the region: “All that I’ve heard about my opponent are good things. I don’t view this as running against him. I just tell people, ‘This is what I can contribute and this is who I am.’”

“I’m hopeful that whoever ends up in this office is going to do their best just to be a resource for the community,” Thompson said.

As an added plus to taxpayers, they’ll work for nothing. It’s pure public service.

“Keep politics out of it”

Most counties in North Carolina have a Soil & Water Conservation District governed by a five-member board of supervisors, three of whom are elected and two appointed by the board. The position of Soil and Water Conservation District supervisor is nonpartisan and carries no salary. Both candidates told me they haven’t sought the backing of a political party, though they have each gotten it. 

Until he applied for the job, Thompson said he didn’t know that the outcome was determined by the ballot. In my interview with Rohrbaugh, he insisted that he “wants to keep politics out of it” and he has neither sought nor accepted contributions.

“Zero dollars and zero cents,” he said, “and I want to keep it that way.”

Yet the politics don’t remain completely out of it. Although you won’t see a party affiliation on the ballot, Rohrbaugh has been endorsed by the Buncombe County Republican Party and Thompson’s name appears on endorsement flyers from the county Democratic Party.

As Helene demonstrated through catastrophic flooding and destruction of surface water sources, the Soil and Water Conservation District’s mission is consequential to everyone, not just to farmers and land developers.

The Buncombe District is organized under the Soil & Water Conservation Service (commonly known by the initials S&WCS), which has a long and important history in restoring and managing such valuable resources as farmland and watersheds that feed and drain agricultural land.

It grew out of the Dust Bowl of the 1930s when years-long drought and over-plowing stripped topsoil from farm lands in several midwestern states, devastating entire rural populations.

Federal, state and local governments came together to form the S&WCS, which provided expertise in farming, protection of watersheds, and implementation of land-development practices to prevent such devastation. 

Although the Service lacks power to force landowners to adopt sustainable practices, it offers financial incentives — grants, subsidies, and low-interest loans — to encourage them to do so.

And importantly in the longer term, it works with local governments and state land-grant universities (including North Carolina State University) to develop regulations that focus on land and water conservation.       

Power of Persuasion

“Its only power is that of persuasion,” Rohrbaugh said in an interview. “And that’s exciting because you work with people who want to work with the land, with people who want your help.”

His experience as a land-use and development planner will shape his approach to the district supervisor’s position overseeing a professional staff that directly advises farmers and landowners in implementing sustainable practices, and assists them in getting financial resources to do so. 

Rohrbaugh told me that his background in local government also would enable him as district supervisor to influence county and municipal zoning decisions, which have long-term impacts on entire communities, rural and urban.  

Thompson said his background in what he fondly called “dirty-hands farming” will cause him to see the position through his experiences working with the S&WCS on the Warren Wilson College farm, which includes managing herds of cows, cattle, pigs, and chickens, and the crops that feed them.

His focus would be to encourage agricultural practices that enable farmers to get high yields from crops and livestock, and that also would protect streams and rivers from harmful runoff from those practices.

Why, in the aftermath of Helene, I asked him during an interview at the farm, would an Asheville or other city dweller care about this?

“We all now have a new perspective on how water can affect things,” Thompson said. “The amount of trash deposited on our river bottoms is unimaginable. In some places [the rivers] look like a landfill mixed with organic matter.”

The question for everyone, he continued, is: “How do we think about that as a society? How do we want to plan ahead for such things as this, which seem likely to continue to occur?”

Thompson said the Soil & Water Conservation Service “will have a part to play” in encouraging landowners to implement techniques that may mitigate future damages.

Widely different paths

While both candidates share a love for preserving land and water resources, they came to it from widely different paths. 

Rohrbaugh’s roots extend five generations deep in Henderson and Buncombe counties. He earned an undergraduate degree in planning at East Carolina University, then a graduate degree in public affairs at Western Carolina University.

Over a 30-year career, Rohrbaugh worked for the state’s Department of Environmental Quality focusing on water quality, and as a land-use planner for local governments in the area.

Rohrbaugh has lived more than 20 years in a West Asheville neighborhood. Yet he told me his passion lies in protecting the remaining farms in Buncombe County, especially by encouraging farm owners to preserve their land through conservation easements.

“We need our farmland to grow food, not houses,” he wrote in an email. “Land development [projects such as] subdivisions are taking valuable farmland that should be protected.”

Thompson grew up in Kansas, though not on its vast farmlands.  His parents were both pastors of different congregations in the suburbs. But they shared the belief that humans must be stewards of the land, Thompson told me, and they instilled in him a love of the outdoors. 

After earning graduate degrees in sociology, he took a summer job working on an Amish farm in Minnesota, primarily because he was curious about Amish culture and for the opportunity to work outdoors.

It was, he said, “like being on a vacation” that evolved into a life-changing experience. “I fell in love with the idea of working hard to produce something so meaningful,” he said.

Over the next several years, Thompson farmed in California, Indiana and Michigan, then learned of the opportunity at Warren Wilson College, which is known for its environmentally based agricultural practices and was founded as the North Carolina Farm School.

The job appealed to him as “bringing together two things I loved, education and agriculture. It was at the intersection of the natural and humanistic worlds.”

And what of his decision to seek the Buncombe Soil & Water Conservation District position? “I definitely come at this through the agricultural lens I have at Wilson Wilson.” 

Since the storm, Thompson said the mission of the S&WCS may be more understandable to all voters irrespective of where and how they live. 

“Maybe you’re not a farmer,” he said. “But you are downstream [from farms] and you may now be aware of things that move through our watershed.”

As a farm manager, Thompson said, the impact by Helene on rivers and land “feels as relevant as it could ever be. And hopefully everyone feels that in a very, very material way.”

Election Watch focuses on local politics in the run-up to the Nov. 5 elections. If you have news to share, contact Tom Fiedler at tfiedler@avlwatchdog.org. Tom, who lives in Asheville, has covered politics from local boards to the White House for more than 50 years. He won a Pulitzer Prize during his years as political editor of The Miami Herald, where he was later the executive editor. The Watchdog’s reporting is made possible by donations from the community. To show your support for this vital public service go to avlwatchdog.org/support-our-publication/.

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