This coverage is made possible through a partnership between BPR and Grist, a nonprofit environmental media organization.
A year and a half after Helene flooded the IPEX plastic plant, there’s still a lot of PVC pipe in the French Broad River. On Tuesday, residents, officials and advocates gathered in the town of Woodfin to discuss the longstanding problem.
At the Riverside Rhapsody brewery, debris cleanup crews with MountainTrue estimated they had cleared nearly 7 million pounds of debris from regional waterways — much of which, they added, is plastic pipes. MountainTrue Clean Waters Director Hartwell Carsen said they’ve tried to contact the multinational company for support in the cleanup, but have been stonewalled…