How do you put a price on a 122-year-old mass of concrete sitting in the middle of a river? The value of Craggy Dam on the French Broad River in Buncombe County is now at the center of a debate over river restoration, flood mitigation, power generation and the future of aging dams across the region.
Built in 1904, the dam in Woodfin supplies a portion of the energy used by its owner, the Buncombe County Metropolitan Sewerage District, to power a portion of its wastewater treatment facility.
In 2022 a group of environmental organizations known as the Craggy Coalition approached the MSD to discuss the removal of the dam, which is 13-foot-high and nearly two football fields long…