Highlands Country Club hosted Mountain True, a non-profit that engages in conservation resource management in western North Carolina, on Wednesday to discuss the organization’s initiatives in the region.
Mountain True discussed their work in protecting our natural resources as well as threats impacting our resources.
Bob Wagner, executive director of Mountain True, began by asking those gathered whether or not they trust national parks, businesses, and governments to do their job of protecting natural resources. The group largely responded they had little trust in such organizations.
Wagner then said there are a lot of different motivations for these agents, one key motivation is profit, given the system currently in place. With these agents often prioritizing profits, other goals, like conservation, can be forgotten or ignored. However, Mountain True aims to pick up where others may drop off.
“Mountain True is an organization that brings science, and I’d like to say democracy, which is people, together to advance good public policy, hold polluters accountable,and to engage the general public in the key and critical environmental issues we have,” Wagner said.
Wagner said Mountain True was one of the primary and initial litigants against Duke Energy’s role in coal ash pollution in North Carolina. Mountain True has also worked to prevent nuclear waste dumps from being brought into NC and they have fought proposed oil drilling in the region, even though oil and gas was not found.
Mountain True was established 40 years ago in Franklin, where a group of normal people got together to protect these resources. Wagner said Mountain True works at the local, state, and federal levels to address public lands, clean water, and land use programs. They also work with communities of faith to get them engaged in these issues.
Wagner said they are not against logging, but they want it to happen in the right places. Mountain True monitors every timber sale in the Nantahala and Pisgah forests to protect old growth, which is a vital part of a healthy forest, and national heritage areas.
Mountain True has four river keepers on staff who monitor most of the watersheds in our region and jump into legal issues as needed to protect rivers. Additionally, they work to address housing, transportation, and smart growth and development that can impact land use.
Despite its relative size, Wagner said Mountain True is one of the bigger environmental non-profits in the region and they are willing and able to tackle legal issues head-on.
“We take on big issues and we’re not afraid to do that. We have two environmental attorneys on our staff. We’re very engaged in what are oftentimes controversial issues because we’re going to be there. We’re going to stand behind science and we’re going to protect these places,” he said.
Callie Moore, western regional director, has a Master’s background in water resources with a focus on water quality and watershed management. She said Mountain True has been working on Chinquapin development near Sapphire for 14 months.
The development was having major issues with sedimentation that was harming river qualities. Moore said the homeowners had approached the developer with their concerns but didn’t have any luck. They contacted Mountain True, who got involved, took notice of the sedimentation and filed a notice of violation. This prompted the state to come in and the state made the developer take responsibility and clean the streams. 14 months later, things had gotten back to normal.
Moore said Mountain True is familiar with state agencies and holds a lot of power in the ability to get the state to listen to environmental concerns, with Moore saying, “If they don’t [listen], we’ll hold them accountable, too.”
Moore said while our national forests have made some healthy progress from the largely terrible condition from over-logging when the U.S. government acquired them, they still need restoration. Moore said forests should have trees of staggered age, not trees of a uniform age resulting from large-scale regrowth following large-scale deforestation.
However, Mountain True believes we’re getting there.
“We’ve been able to improve every single project, I think, in the Nantahala National Forest that we’ve been involved with,” said Moore. Moore admitted Mountain True has not made much progress with the Southside project near White Water Falls, which Moore said is at risk of significant logging by the U.S. Forest Service.
Another project Moore is involved with has been Mirror Lake, which Moore has been aware of for 23 years now. Some Highlanders want to dredge Mirror Lake, which Moore said the town was trying to get funding for in 2000. This project, which could drain sediment and offer a cleaner, healthier lake, could take roughly $4.2 million dollars.
When asked about concerns in our area, Mountain True said they range from microplastics to bacterial contamination to ineffective growth of communities.
Some Highlanders would like to see plastic bags banned. Wagner said the average person consumes a credit card’s worth of microplastics each week. Moore said it would be easy to sample the waterways for microplastics. All Mountain True would need is interest among the people and publicly available locations where people could pick up and drop off jars with water samples.
Moore’s biggest concern on the aquatic front in western North Carolina is bacterial contamination.
“It’s not just one thing. It’s livestock and poor agricultural management, leaking septic systems from older homes and neighborhoods, it’s domesticated populations of Canada geese, it’s sewer overflows… It’s pretty overwhelming,” Moore said.
Moore said aquatic damages can be minimized by keeping streams shaded and allowing a native riparian buffer to grow, as well as maintaining septic systems and limiting single-use plastics.
Wagner said he sees the biggest issue as poor growth management, causing land loss, erosion, and pollution. He said a lot of forests are on private lands and are going away quickly in western North Carolina.
“How we manage growth in this region is critically important. Our local governments don’t really have the support or the desire, oftentimes, to do that in our rural areas,” Wagner said.
Wagner encouraged people to get involved with Mountain True, which can be done through mountaintrue.org.
“We’re only as good as the people we have standing behind us,” he said.