Serving Boone, Blowing Rock, Banner Elk, and other towns of the North Carolina High Country
Founded 05-05-05

What Would You Pay for the River?

Story by Kathleen McFadden

Rick Dove took a close look at the Watauga and Elk rivers during a trip to the High Country last week and found some problems.

Dove, a staff member with the Waterkeeper Alliance and former Riverkeeper of the Neuse River in eastern North Carolina, traveled here at the invitation of Metropolitan Opera mezzo-soprano Brenda Boozer who lives in the area and wanted to investigate the potential of establishing a Riverkeeper program in the High Country.

Riverkeepers advocate for compliance with environmental laws, respond to citizen complaints, identify problems that affect an identified body of water and devise appropriate remedies to address the problems.

The program is under the auspices of the Waterkeeper Alliance—established by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.—that functions as the international center of a network of Waterkeeper programs. Waterkeeper Alliance approves new Waterkeeper programs, such as Riverkeeper, Lakekeeper, Baykeeper and Coastkeeper, and has strict quality standards for approval. Currently, 150 programs protect bodies of water across the globe. North Carolina has 10 Riverkeepers and Coastkeepers; the closest to the High Country protect the French Broad and Catawba rivers.

After his High Country tour, Dove met with a small group that included Boone Town Council member Bunk Spann, Harvard Ayers of Appalachian Voices, Nancy Spann representing MountainKeepers, and Sue Counts and Wendy Patoprsty from Cooperative Extension.

According to Dove, Waterkeeper Alliance requires that Riverkeepers be full-time, nongovernmental, paid advocates for a named body of water, they must be funded through a nonprofit organization and the money has to come from the local community.

The startup cost, Dove said, is approximately $150,000 if the community has to establish a nonprofit, considerably less if an existing nonprofit can handle the program. The average annual Riverkeeper salary, he said, is $40,000 to $50,000. It’s a demanding job, Dove explained, often requiring 13 to 14 hours of work per day.

The Riverkeeper, Dove said, “is the leading voice for the community on the river” and “represents the water in an uncompromising way.” That “uncompromising way” includes the potential for litigation. “In the final analysis, the Riverkeeper will do whatever needs to be done to keep the river in good shape,” he said.

Dove identified a significant problem during his tour of the Watauga and Elk rivers. “I looked at the stream bottoms and found a lot of sediment in the streams,” he said. Sediment isn’t just an environmental issue, he said, but an economic issue as well because of the High Country’s tourism economy.

“The whole future of your community depends on clean air and water. It’s your economic engine,” Dove said.

Based on what he observed, Dove identified three principal issues that could keep a Riverkeeper busy in the High Country: sedimentation, unsustainable development and wastewater.

Several attendees at the meeting volunteered to serve on a feasibility taskforce, and Bunk Spann commented, “I would hope there is enough interest in our community to give this a good look. Our biggest challenge will be raising the money to put a Riverkeeper on the river.”

Patoprsty, who works extensively with water quality issues throughout the region, enthusiastically endorsed the idea. “This is the most exciting thing ever,” she said. “I think it’s really important to have a Riverkeeper. When you look at other communities, they have 20 people doing water quality.”

The bottom line, Dove said, is “what do the people in the community think of their water?”