Western North Carolina’s pristine rivers and streams help fuel the region’s economy.

Challenge: Consistent, clean water is crucial to maintaining production quality in certain manufacturing sectors.

Solution: Western North Carolina has an abundance of pure, clean water, which also provides many recreational opportunities such as fishing and kayaking.

By Sam Boykin

It all starts some 5,200 feet above sea level. Pristine streams and springs atop western North Carolina’s Appalachian Mountains flow down into the North Fork and Bee Tree reservoirs, both of which border the Blue Ridge Parkway scenic highway in eastern Buncombe County. Each reservoir, essentially a big lake, is surrounded by 20,000 protected acres within the Pisgah National Forest. About 30 miles to the southwest, just below Asheville, is the Mills River Reservoir, situated on more than 47,000 acres in Henderson and Transylvania counties.

Together, these three reservoirs produce about 21 million gallons of water a day. The system delivers water to about 125,000 commercial and residential customers in Buncombe and part of Henderson County, providing not just a necessary natural resource, but also a valuable economic-development tool in attracting and retaining manufacturers.

Water quality and accessibility played a key role in beer brewers such as Sierra Nevada, New Belgium and Oskar Blues choosing to set up manufacturing operations in the region.

“Beer is 98% water, so the source and quality of water was a huge factor in our decision to locate to Asheville,” says Sarah Fraser, a sustainability specialist at New Belgium Brewery. The Fort Collins, Colo.-based company opened a $140 million, 127,000-square-foot brewery along the French Broad River in 2016.

Oskar Blues Brewery’s 2012 East Coast expansion hinged on Brevard’s quality of life and focus on the outdoors, as well as the area’s pure water, says Chad Melis, marketing director at the Longmont, Colo.-based company. “Water is such an important resource for us,” he says. Oskar Blues employs about 60 people at its 80,000-square-foot brewery, where it produces about 200,000 barrels a year.

But it’s not just brewers who value clean water. Local manufacturers who make everything from firefighting equipment to topical skin products also require quality water, and western North Carolina has some of the cleanest.

The North Fork and Bee Tree reservoirs, both owned by the city of Asheville, are the region’s primary sources. During the filtration process, water is pre-chlorinated and mixed with special chemicals to coagulate particles that come from the lake. After mixing, the water flows through filters, which remove the coagulated materials. Following filtration, more chemicals are added, including fluoride and corrosion inhibitors, and the water is once again chlorinated for further disinfection.

Mills River Reservoir is a secondary water source for the region, while also providing a valuable wildlife habitat and recreational resource. Filtration at Mills River is more complex because its watershed contains a mixture of forest, farmland and low-density development, which creates run-off. The process at Mills River includes ozone treatment and a series of additional disinfectant procedures to improve quality.

Out of more than 150 possible substances found in water, only eight (including trace amounts of flouride, lead and copper) were detected in a 2016 test, according to the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality. That makes the region’s three reservoirs among the cleanest sources of water in the U.S.

“Our water is a big asset,” says David Melton, the City of Asheville’s interim director of water resources. “The brewers and manufacturers have to do very little treatment or adjustments to make it fit their needs.”

Superior water quality is a powerful economic-development tool, says Ben Teague, executive director of the Economic Development Coalition for Asheville-Buncombe County. When it comes to recruiting companies, most local assets fall into either a “satisfier” bucket or a “differentiator” bucket, Teague says. A satisfier has to do with technical items that a company checks off when considering a location, such as available land, infrastructure and water. But for some companies, water is a differentiator, and its quality and accessibility can strongly influence a deal. “It can be a big component in a company’s decision-making process,” Teague says.

One such company is Avadim Technologies Inc., an Asheville-based life-sciences company that is investing $25.4 million in a new corporate headquarters and manufacturing facility at the Black Mountain Commerce Park. The facility, scheduled to open in mid-2019, is expected to add 551 jobs. Josh Montgomery, Avadim’s vice president of manufacturing, says that while the local water quality didn’t play a role in the company’s decision to first open in Asheville in 2007, “it did play a role in our decision to stay here.”

Avadim makes topical skin products such as sprays and foams for use in the medical, retail, sports and military fields. “Our products are greater than 90% water,” Montgomery says. “For our applications, the water quality here doesn’t require any additional costly treatment.” The company will use about 30,000 gallons of water a day at its new headquarters.

Lassonde Pappas & Co. also relies on clean, local water. The New Jersey-based company cans and bottles private-label beverages such as juices, water and tea at a 285,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Hendersonville. The site serves about 70 customers, shipping products to 38 states and throughout Europe, according to plant manager Pete Szelwach. Lassonde Pappas uses more than 50 million gallons of water a year, Szelwach says.

“We’re the largest purchaser of water in Henderson County,” he says. “We’re blending product primarily from concentrates, so clean, consistent water is key. The only thing we have to really do with the water is remove the chlorine, and we do that with simple carbon filtration. The local municipal water is that good.”

Water quality also helped persuade Germany-based Norafin Industries to open its first U.S. manufacturing facility in the Henderson County town of Mills River. The company is building a $20 million, 75,000-square-foot facility where it will use high-pressure water to entangle materials to make protective, nonwoven textiles for firefighting gear and other applications. The facility, which is scheduled to open in spring 2018, will employ about 50 people.

“If we don’t have high-quality water during our manufacturing process, we run into production quality issues, so a good, reliable, clean water source is very integral for us,” says Stuart Smith, general manager for Norafin Americas.

Brittany Brady, vice president of the Henderson County Partnership for Economic Development, has touted the local water’s abundance and accessibility for many years in conversations with site-location consultants. But it was only after working with companies such as Sierra Nevada and Norafin that she realized the crucial nature of the water’s purity.

“Water quality is especially important if you’re dealing with a bicoastal or international company where the product has to be consistent,” Brady says. “It’s easier to add something to the water than try to filter something out. Having that clean baseline saves companies a lot of money — and also makes us that much more of a desirable destination.”

Nature’s playground

Millions of people each year seek recreational opportunities along western North Carolina’s waterways, including boating, fishing, stand-up paddleboarding or simply exploring the area’s many waterfalls. The 218-mile French Broad River is one of the area’s most popular destinations. Stretching from North Carolina’s Transylvania County into Tennessee, the historic river is a haven for those who love the outdoors.

A popular way to explore the river is via the French Broad River Paddle Trail, a 140-mile “blueway” with about 10 paddle-in campsites spaced roughly 12 miles apart. Asheville’s Western North Carolina Alliance, a group devoted to preserving the region’s public lands, helped create the trail, which runs from the town of Rosman in Transylvania County, through the Pisgah National Forest and into Tennessee’s Douglas Lake.

River Bend is a former tree farm near Brevard and the trail’s southernmost campsite. The serene flat water here has some of the state’s best fishing for muskellunge, a member of the pike family often called muskie. About 7 miles downstream is the Little River Campground, a remote site situated at the confluence of the Little and French Broad rivers. The next stop, Firefighter Island, has a trail running through its center that connects different campsites and is located across from Biltmore Estate, the home built in the late 1800s by George Vanderbilt that is one of the state’s biggest tourist attractions.

A growing number of outfitters along the river offer a variety of experiences. Asheville Adventure Rentals rents inner tubes for floating from the French Broad River Park to the popular River Arts District, where visitors can wander through art studios, restaurants and breweries. Asheville Outdoor Center offers stand-up paddleboarding lessons, and at Wai Mauna SUP Tours, you can cruise down the river on a six-person, 17-foot “party barge” raft.

More adventurous types visit the Nantahala River, a popular destination for whitewater rafting and kayaking. The river, which has Class II and III rapids, runs through the Nantahala National Forest and empties into the Little Tennessee River at Fontana Lake. Situated along the shore of the river in Bryson City is the Nantahala Outdoor Center, the nation’s largest outdoor-recreation company. In addition to being one of the biggest employers in western North Carolina, the center hosts more than
1 million guests annually.

Local waterways also attract companies that make products for the recreation industry, says Brittany Brady, vice president of the Henderson County Partnership for Economic Development. Legacy Paddlesports relocated in 2012 to Fletcher, where it invested $4.5 million in a manufacturing facility and created more than 100 jobs. The company tests its Liquidlogic kayaks on the nearby Green River.

“We just love kayaking, and as far as accessible whitewater, Asheville is hard to beat,” says Pat Keller, a brand director and designer at Liquidlogic. “We’ve got a variety of places where we can go and test our boats, from flatwater to Class V whitewater. Plus, this area is a hub for kayakers and people who love the outdoor lifestyle.”

Outdoor Gear Builders of WNC is a coalition of western North Carolina-based outdoor companies. The organization’s goal is to grow outdoor-gear manufacturing and attract companies to the area. Outdoor-gear manufacturers provide nearly 500 jobs in the region and more than $6 million in local sourcing of materials and contracts within WNC, the group says. Statewide, outdoor recreation generates $19.2 billion and 192,000 jobs, according to a recent Outdoor Industry Association report.