Today’s round of questions, my smart-aleck replies and the real answers:

Question: In your Helene reportage, will you address the impact the storm made on wildlife —  bears in their dens, small land animals unable to climb trees, etc.? While I know some organizations found cats, there hasn’t been any mention of how all these animals fared.

My answer: If any critters can survive an ecological apocalypse, I’d put my money on feral cats. OK, maybe my dogs because they’d be asleep on the couch.

Real answer: The main message from the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission is that it’s going to be assessing this for a long time. But here are some of the highlights from various WRC staffers, starting with spokesperson Anna Gurney, who compiled this information for me.

“It will likely be some time before the damage to WRC infrastructure is known, but the Armstrong State Fish Hatchery in Marion was severely damaged, and staff from that facility had to be evacuated by helicopter,” Gurney said. “All 600,000 trout were lost. Fall Delayed Harvest trout stockings have been suspended until staff can assess damage to facilities and delayed harvest stream locations.”

Restocking may start this month, depending on staffing, Gurney said.

“All other hatchery facilities received minimal damage and have resumed normal operations,” she added.

Regarding bears, Colleen Olfenbuttel, a black bear and furbearer biologist with the commission, had good news.

“Bears are resilient and can easily escape flood water and the storm,” Olfenbuttel said. “We also had six rehabbed bear cubs on the ground with GPS collars, and while they were not right in the ‘impact’ zone of Asheville, they are all alive and well. Based on their locations, they settled down during the storm and are now on the move again.”

The news was not so great for hellbenders, the large amphibians that live in our mountain streams and rivers. They’re unusual critters with a flat head and a paddle-like tail.

“Initial reports are that hellbenders appear to have taken a major hit across multiple counties and watersheds,” said Lori Williams, a biologist and hellbender expert with the WRC. “People are reporting finding them hundreds of feet away from rivers, stuck in mud ditches, piles of storm debris, and washed out in open fields.” 

A lot of dead ones have been uncovered in storm cleanup. 

“Immediately after the storm, there were some still alive that good-hearted folks put back in rivers,” Williams said. They’ve received reports about displaced hellbenders from Transylvania, Avery, Watauga and Ashe counties.

Williams said the population assessment will take time because so many rivers sustained such heavy damage.

“We anticipate habitat damage and/destruction in most watersheds, meaning loss and displacement of shelter rocks, nest rocks, and nests themselves, which would have had eggs soon to hatch this time of year,” Williams said.

She expects more damage to surface in the coming weeks. Here in Buncombe, Williams noted that the population of hellbenders in the Swannanoa River was “barely hanging on before Helene.

“Seeing what happened to that river now, are any hellbenders left in there at all?” Williams said. “Would be a low chance, in my opinion.”

Eastern Hellbenders are listed as a “state species of special concern.” They have small, isolated populations in a limited number of creeks in the state, biologists say.

Biologists say they’ll  have to start from scratch in the hardest-hit rivers, and then do more in-depth monitoring in the coming months and years.

Miranda Turner, a WRC wildlife health biologist in the Game and Furbearer program, said wildlife can be affected in numerous ways when a large storm like Helene hits.

During the storm, rising waters likely displaced animals from dens and nests, especially in low-lying areas. 

High winds caused birds and bats to alter their flying behavior to seek shelter, which affects foraging. Aquatic animals may have to go to new areas to seek shelter.

“Many species of birds were migrating in late September when the hurricane hit, and as a result biologists have found birds blown far off their typical migratory paths and species are being found in atypical locations — such as birds that are usually only found over the ocean being spotted inland,” Turner said.

Turner also noted that all the debris that’s washed up on creek and river banks will likely cause water quality issues for months. Pollution could also have long-term effects.

I’ll note that in a recent Buncombe County daily briefing, French Broad Riverkeeper Hartwell Carson, who works for the nonprofit MountainTrue, said he had not seen any large fish kills along the French Broad.

Turner pointed out one possible impact I hadn’t really thought about — the loss of human-made infrastructure. You may think it would be a positive to remove this, but “in reality many wildlife species use human-made structures extensively and have been displaced from their homes by the loss of these structures,” Turner said.

“Western North Carolina is known to have many species of bats that roost in bridges, including federally endangered gray bats,” Turner said. “With the loss of multiple bridges due to flooding, it is unknown whether these roosts and bats survived the storm, and it will take many months for the infrastructure in the area to improve enough that biologists will be able to access these areas to check on the bat populations.”

She noted other threatened or endangered species, such as the southern bog turtle, Hickory Nut Gorge green salamander, and the Carolina northern flying squirrel, that the commission will not be able to assess until infrastructure improves.

All of the storm disturbance could contribute to disease outbreaks in wildlife.

“Animals such as black bears, raccoons, skunks, and opossums are already taking advantage of the plentiful trash and rotting food to forage in urban areas more than they had been prior to the storm,” Turner said. “When many animals congregate in small areas, the potential for a disease outbreak is much greater.”

Also, standing water after the flood raises the risk for vector-borne illnesses spreading in wildlife, such as West Nile virus transmitted by mosquitoes.

“NCWRC staff will be carefully monitoring for the spread of any diseases in the wildlife in the Hurricane Helene impacted areas during the upcoming months, and currently there have been no unusual signs of disease in the area,” Turner said.

The commission on Oct. 4 noted in a news release that it was receiving reports of an increase in human-black bear interactions in Asheville and Buncombe County, in part because of more trash in area, unattended food donations, and “the attractiveness of rotting foods, particularly in damaged homes and businesses.”

Regarding feral cats, the Asheville Humane Society told me that’s not something it tracks and referred me to Sister Kitten Animal Rescue in Maggie Valley. Executive Director Eric Phelps said their impression is that it’s sort of a mixed bag — undoubtedly, some cats got caught off guard by the quickly rising waters and drowned, but they’ve also found quite a few survivors in unexpected places.

He noted that feral cat colonies are “pretty ubiquitous all over the area.

“And we had several colonies that we feed over in the River Arts District, actually right by Asheville Paper Company, which got completely wiped out,” Phelps told me. “There’s about a dozen cats there that we’ve been feeding the last few years, and we had no idea if they were able to survive or not.”

They had guessed they got wiped out because cats tend to look to climb trees or other objects when faced with rising waters, and there was really nowhere to go when the French Broad rose out of its banks.

“Once the water receded enough, we got over there to the location where we had been feeding previously, and we started feeding again,” Phelps said. “Finally, we got a game camera up a couple of weeks ago, and we’re seeing about half the colony has returned, which is pretty striking, because some of these cats are elderly.”

With the lack of trees to climb, Phelps isn’t sure how they made it.

“They must have run like hell to get away from the water,” he said.

Further north in the RAD, a woman feeds a couple of colonies, maybe a dozen cats total, near the Jeff Bowen Bridge, Phelps said.

“And all of her cats returned — all of them,” Phelps said. “She got them all back, even the ones under the bridge that were at water level. Those cats apparently got away from the water. And once she was able to start feeding over there again, they all came back.”

In other places, though, particularly mobile home parks, Phelps said the loss of life was probably more significant, as feral cats facing flood waters will often climb up underneath the homes seeking shelter. 

He said his organization also has been searching for owned pets, and he got a hit on a game camera for a woman’s pet cat in Swannanoa recently. That cat lived in a home that flooded to the roof line, Phelps said, adding that the cat had been distinctively groomed before the storm so he’s pretty certain it’s the right animal.

“She hasn’t been back in the neighborhood, but now she’s back, moving around in the neighborhood, looking for food or trying to find her mom,” Phelps said. “It’s taken over a month for her to come back. So I guess the message there is, don’t give up hope.”

Question: I’ve gotten quite a few questions from readers about the City of Asheville’s boil water notice, which remains in effect. I’ll summarize: If the city is super-chlorinating the water it’s sending out from the North Fork Reservoir, that should kill pathogens. So what good does heating up the water to the boiling point do? Isn’t that just boiling the clay and other minerals in the water without getting rid of them?

My answer: In my book, nothing tastes finer than a nice cup of hot clay water with just the right dash of aluminum sulfate for smoothness.

Real answer: I posed this question to Asheville Water Resources Department spokesperson Clay Chandler at the Buncombe County Helene briefing Monday.

“So that’s to eliminate any bacteria that may be in the water by the time it reaches your tap,” Chandler said. “Boiling water is going to kill bacteria. It’s not going to reduce the level of things like chlorine, aluminum, iron and manganese. It’s specifically designed to kill things like E coli and coliform, none of which we’ve had a positive for in the distribution system, by the way, since we’ve been testing.”

The city still recommends using bottled water for consumption and using tap water for non-consumption uses such as showering and flushing toilets. The upshot is that you could drink the boiled water (boil for at least one minute), if you had no access to any other drinking water, but you’re better off drinking bottled water if you can get it.

“We are presenting every bit of information that we have, and if somebody is comfortable boiling the water and consuming it, that’s certainly up to them,” Chandler said. “Bottled water for consumption, or water from an alternate source for consumption is recommended if it’s available. If it’s not available — there’s just no way under the sun that somebody can get their hands on purified water — they can boil it for a minimum of one minute beforehand, before any kind of consumption.”

You can find an extensive list of frequently asked questions on the water department’s Helene recovery page, and that includes a lot of information about boiling water and the minerals currently in the water. Also, check out Asheville Watchdog’s most recent story about the city’s water restoration efforts.

Question: Explore Asheville has been saying for weeks that they will be distributing grants to local tourism-related businesses, but they’ve yet to “stand up” an application. Considering the amount of money they have access to, I’m wondering why it’s taking so long for them to do something for the businesses who’ve helped fund them.

My answer: Hey, I have no more luck getting Explore Asheville to answer questions than you do.

Real answer: Seriously, I really don’t. I sent this question over to Explore Asheville on Oct. 23 and got a few assurances they were working on it. Then they put out a news release Oct. 31 saying they’re now accepting applications for the Always Asheville Fund, which they established Oct. 9.

The fund will “support small, independent travel and hospitality businesses throughout Asheville and Buncombe County in reopening after the devastating impacts of Hurricane Helene. More than $750,000 will be available in microgrants ranging from $5,000 to $10,000.”

Explore Asheville is a subsidiary of the Buncombe County Tourism Development Authority, which has a $34 million budget this year. 

Asheville Watchdog is a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and Buncombe County. Got a question? Send it to John Boyle at jboyle@avlwatchdog.org or 828-337-0941. His Answer Man columns appear each Tuesday and Friday. 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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As the murkiness of North Fork Reservoir continues to improve — some residents noticed clearer tap water over the weekend — the City of Asheville is pursuing a filtration plan from the Army Corps of Engineers that could be in place by the end of the month.

“Some good news is Water Resources now has a second option at its disposal for treating the turbid water at North Fork reservoir,” city Water Reources Department spokesperson Clay Chandler said at the Monday Buncombe County Helene briefing. “The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is in the early stages of implementing an alternative treatment project that could possibly — and I want to stress possibly — be operational in very late November, very early December. That’s based on information the Corps of Engineers has given us.”

The city has installed turbidity-reducing curtains in North Fork, which supplies 80 percent of Asheville’s drinking water, and it has completed two rounds of treatment with aluminum sulfate and caustic soda, which cause coagulation of sediments and reduce sedimentation. That allowed the city to put 10 million to 15 million gallons of treated water a day into Asheville’s system over the weekend, which likely accounted for the clearer water customers say they saw over the weekend, Chandler said.

The Corps of Engineers system will rely on mobile treatment units, which will be staged at North Fork in a clearing above the dam. The exact number of the units, which Chandler described as “generally shaped like a shipping container,” and precise layout are still being determined. He said the city hopes the system is operational by early December.

“We will pursue this option concurrently with the in-reservoir treatment process, and we’re absolutely not giving up on that, not by any means,” Chandler said. “And it’s possible that the in-reservoir treatment process clears up the lake enough for us to start treating water on a very large scale before the Corps of Engineers system is even operational.”

At the briefing, Chandler said the reservoir’s turbidity had dropped to 18.5 by Monday morning, down from 21.2 on Oct. 31. Measured in Nephelometric Turbidity Units (NTUs), turbidity needs to hit about 1.5-2.0 for the city to be able to fully treat the water to make it potable.

Chandler stressed that the Corps of Engineers’ plan is a construction project, so weather, equipment procurement and other variables could cause delays. Planning started Oct. 1.

Despite the variables, Chandler said, “We are very, very hopeful and optimistic that by early December, based on the information that we have right now, that system will be operational.”

The goal is to reach a capacity of 25 million gallons of treatable water a day.

“That’s enough to keep the system pressurized and provide flushing capacity,” Chandler said, referring to clearing the system of non-potable water. “The flushing part of this is going to be very, very important.”

Once the city starts pushing out nothing but potable water into the system, “we’re going to have to completely replace the water in the tanks and our main transmission and all auxiliary transmission lines,” Chandler said.

That process will take a couple of weeks.

System flush, testing must happen before boil water notice can be lifted

“I think the latest timeline we have for that is two and a half to three weeks, so even though we start pushing potable water, that does not mean that the boil water notice will be lifted immediately,” Chandler said. “We will have to again flush the system and perform some extensive back-end testing before we can lift that boil water notice.”

The entire system, which serves 63,000 residential and commercial customers, remains under a boil water notice. The tap water available now is safe for showering and flushing commodes, but bottled water is recommended for consumption.

Chandler stressed that the Corps of Engineers’ installation timeline may change. The federal agency is in the process of procuring materials, equipment and personnel.

“Over the next couple of weeks, equipment, materials and personnel will begin arriving at North Fork for construction and setup,” Chandler said. “Once construction and setup begins, the contract’s terms will require the contractor who’s going to do all this work to work for 24 hours a day until the system is operational. So we’re trying our best to move this process along as quickly as possible.”

A third round of aluminum sulfate/caustic soda treatment is planned. The city will give the second round more time to work, so the third round will likely take place Monday or Tuesday of next week.

“I want to emphasize again, it is important to note that the in-reservoir treatment process could clear up the reservoir before the Corps of Engineers project is operational,” Chandler said. “However, to maximize redundancy, we are going to pursue the Corps of Engineers project regardless. And keeping that system in place until we have the upgraded filters that we’ve been seeking is a possibility that we’re going to pursue.”

FEMA will pay for the Corps of Engineers system, but the cost was not available at the briefing.

North Fork, which opened in 1955, uses a “direct filtration” system designed for extremely pure water, which the reservoir normally delivers, mainly because of its pristine 20,000-acre wooded watershed. The system cannot handle higher turbidity.

Plates can filter out stubborn sedimentation

The Corps of Engineers systems works with a system of “sedimentation plates” that removes sediment. The lake sediment is mostly very fine clay particles that have stubbornly remained in suspension, and the plates can filter that out.

“To simplify that, it will basically remove not 100 percent but pretty close to 100 percent of the sediment that’s in the water, which is what’s causing it to be turbid right now,” Chandler said.

Chandler said previously that installing a permanent filtration system designed for high turbidity would cost the city more than $100 million. The city does have a “filter upgrade wish list” for North Fork and its other reservoir, Bee Tree in Swannanoa.

“Essentially, if we were to get that project funded, the technology that we would be using at that point is the same technology that the Corps of Engineers will use with their system,” Chandler said. “We would absolutely love to keep this Corps of Engineers system in place until those filter upgrades are made. And if it’s up to us, we will. It’s not completely up to us, though, but we’re going to make that case.”

Asheville City Councilmember Maggie Ullman broke the news about the Corps of Engineers equipment installation and timeline in a Friday Instagram post. Chandler addressed the county briefing the day before but didn’t mention the Corps of Engineers plan.

“It became viable Wednesday night and made its way down to me after the briefing on Thursday,” Chandler said. “We didn’t have a community briefing until today. There was no immediate deadline for any kind of action or anything like that, so we felt comfortable waiting until today to detail it.”

He noted that the timeline was provided by the Corps of Engineers, not the city, which has steadfastly refused to offer a timeline on potential potable water restoration other than to say it is weeks away.

Asheville Watchdog is a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and Buncombe County. John Boyle has been covering Asheville and surrounding communities since the 20th century. You can reach him at (828) 337-0941, or via email at jboyle@avlwatchdog.org. To show your support for this vital public service go to avlwatchdog.org/support-our-publication/.

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