Jubal Roe, a river guide and firefighter, bushwhacked along the riverbank of the Nolichucky Gorge in eastern Tennessee. He was there with a couple of other river guides to see how Hurricane Helene changed the river.
“The river actually flowed closer to where that road is. Down through here? Completely changed,” Roe said. He pointed to a rocky area that rafters previously nicknamed “psycho ledge” — a landmark on their usual route through the gorge.
The Nolichucky River flows freely through a deep gorge from North Carolina into Tennessee. This river, and its whitewater rapids, are part of a growing tourism and outdoor economy. When Hurricane Helene hit in September, flooding changed the river’s flow.
It also wiped out a portion of an important rail corridor that runs from Kentucky to the South Carolina border. The company that runs the rail line needs to make repairs, but river guides want to keep the river corridor pristine.
“This ledge is rock, bedrock sticking out,” added Dennis Ashford, also a rafter. Ashford pointed to a shallow spot along the bank which used to be filled with river rock. Now, it’s just mud.
“This was kind of where we first discovered what was happening,” he said.
What they realized is that railroad company CSX removed rock from the river to repair its nearby train tracks.
The railway transports quartz and other commodities that are vital for domestic semiconductor chip production, so it’s important that trains get running again. But repairs seems to be changing the rapids and channels of the river, which is a huge concern for Ashford and Roe.
“When you divide the river up to so many different channels, it becomes more shallow,” said Roe, “and possibly unnavigable for rafting companies and stuff that rely on this river for economic tourism.”
After environmental groups sued, regulatory agencies forced CSX to stop. Now, CSX says it’s currently working with those agencies to complete repairs in a safe and responsible way.
Meanwhile, a lot of workers who make a living in the outdoor industry are kind of up the creek — including outfitter and guide Trey Moore.
“The hurricane has already had a significant impact on my business,” Moore said.
That’s on top of the trauma and stress that a lot of guides experienced in the aftermath. Since most guides have swiftwater search and rescue skills, they helped look for survivors. Tourism wasn’t happening anyways.
“I have been out of work for almost eight weeks now, so I have no paycheck for the foreseeable future,” Moore said.
Rafting and other outdoor recreation is a $17 million annual industry in Unicoi County.
It used to be that the railway was the economic engine for the county, but now CSX no longer employs many locals, — especially since it closed the town’s biggest employer, the rail yard, in 2015.
“Up until that point, we were a railroad town,” said Michael Baker, one of Erwin’s city leaders. His community already struggled with high poverty and unemployment, he said. Then, flooding from the hurricane dismantled a couple of major employers, including two factories and the county hospital. The river and forest are what’s left — and much of that is public land.
“There’s not as much available land for new industry for new housing,” Baker said. “But we do have 54% National Forest land, which is the people’s land that we can use and market.”
In early December, regulators ordered CSX to stop mining river rock, which river advocates say is a win. CSX says it will comply.
Rafters like Dennis Ashford say they’re not against the railroad. They just want the work to be done in a way that doesn’t change this wild river.
“Rivers like this are, they’re unicorns,” Ashford said.
The wildness of the river, Ashford said, is what makes it special and what has united the area’s tight-knit raft guides; it draws young people to this rural community.
“It’s a free-flowing river,” he added. “It’s in one of the deepest gorges in the East Coast. It’s incredibly remote and rugged. So when you’re in there, you get that sense of true adventure.”
But if the river isn’t runnable or fun for tourists, they might take their money somewhere else.
