Warren Wilson College has landed a new $300,000 federal grant aimed at helping communities across Western North Carolina repair rivers and streambanks torn apart by Hurricane Helene, bringing students and residents together to tackle damage left by the storm and the cleanup that followed. The money will fund free, hands-on workshops where anyone can learn to patch up eroded banks, replant native vegetation, and even take plants home for their own restoration projects.
The grant flows through the college's Center for Working Lands and will support workshops led by the center, the Swannanoa River Stewards crew and regional nonprofit partners, according to WLOS. Dates for those workshops have not yet been announced, the station reports. Of the total, $200,000 is earmarked for restoration work in the Swannanoa watershed itself, while the remaining $100,000 will go to partner organizations working across the region, according to the college.
The Swannanoa River runs directly through Warren Wilson's campus, and students there have spent two years working to restore riverbanks battered by the September 2024 storm. Mazzy Carroll, a Warren Wilson senior and member of the River Stewards crew, called the river their favorite place on earth and said the new funding brought a sense of relief after two years of recovery work, per the WLOS report.
Cleanup Left Its Own Scars on the Riverbanks
Much of the damage wasn't just from floodwater. According to Warren Wilson College, post-storm cleanup crews used riverbeds as makeshift roads, damaging streambanks and aquatic habitats, while debris removal efforts tore up vegetation that helps hold soil in place. Dr. Liesl Erb, a professor of environmental studies at the college, said the effects of that cleanup varied — in some spots less damaging, in others greatly damaging to natural systems — and that debris piles reached 20 feet high along the college's riverbanks, per her account relayed in the WLOS story.
Erb said the impact has been felt community-wide, not just on campus. The college's own account of a separate planting effort last year describes much of the Swannanoa and its banks as severely devegetated following post-flood remediation work by the Army Corps of Engineers. That project brought together eight Warren Wilson classes, the Conservation Biology Crew, the NC Wildlife Resources Commission, neighboring landowners and other community partners to plant more than 18,000 live stakes along the river.
Why Native Plants Matter for Flood Protection
Restoring native trees and shrubs along the banks can help hold soil in place, reduce erosion and protect water quality, according to the college. Healthy floodplains can also absorb excess water, which could potentially reduce flood damage to nearby homes and downstream communities — though the college frames that benefit as a potential, not a guarantee. Those principles echo what the nonprofit RiverLink has found in its own assessment of the watershed with engineering firm Wildlands Engineering, describing riparian buffers as key to holding soil and protecting adjacent property.
The scale of the damage RiverLink documented is stark: three out of four riverside properties lost streambank or floodplain, and more than 40 acres of streamside forest were washed away in the September 2024 flooding. The nonprofit estimates that fully repairing the damage and improving flood resilience along the Middle Swannanoa could cost $10 million to $13 million, and its watershed action plan lays out 100 separate restoration projects, from replanting banks to giving floodwaters room to spread.
A River Still Listed as Impaired
The Swannanoa's troubles predate Helene in some ways. In 2024, the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality listed 25.7 miles of the river as impaired for fecal coliform bacteria and a lack of benthic macroinvertebrates, underscoring why restoration advocates see the watershed as needing more than just storm cleanup. RiverLink has separately secured an $80,000 grant from the North Carolina Land and Water Fund to develop its watershed action plan, and the group has said Warren Wilson faculty and students are expected to help by collecting and analyzing water quality data to guide future projects.
Other recovery efforts are underway nearby. RiverLink recently purchased five acres along the river and secured an $822,780 state grant for planned flood-resilience work, while the Town of Black Mountain is pursuing its own $5 million grant-funded Floodbench Project to realign a stretch of the river and bench the floodplain so it can absorb overflow during heavy rain, with a planned second phase adding a retention pond and wetlands.
For Warren Wilson, the new grant means students will be able to share what they've learned from two years of hands-on recovery work with the wider community, offering residents a chance to get their hands dirty and take a piece of the restoration home with them. As of last August, restoration crews on campus were still removing trees and repairing fences and roads damaged by the storm, according to WUNC, a reminder of how long recovery from Helene has stretched on in Western North Carolina.
