$150K boost moves RiverLink's Southside project closer to finish line

A project aiming to transform a water runoff issue into a community asset at Erskine Apartments in Asheville is barreling forward with a $150,000 grant from the state. 

RiverLink's Southside Community Stormwater Project is working to address stormwater problems in the historically Black neighborhood and improve water quality in Nasty Branch. 

The project will expand an existing wetland, install an overflow measure to solve issues with a flood-prone parking lot and redesign a concrete ditch into a natural channel. 

A new walking path and shade structure will be built, and a chain link fence that keeps residents from walking directly to the nearby Edington Center will be removed. 

The Residents' Council of Asheville Housing Authority and Green Opportunities are also partnering on the project, and the latter will provide green job training on-site during construction, teaching everything from surveying to design, construction, planting and maintenance on stormwater features. 

More:Walking paths, edible plants and more: Residents weigh in on RiverLink's Southside project

The effort was awarded the grant from the state Department of Justice's Environmental Enhancement Grant program Oct. 14, with Attorney General Josh Stein on hand at the Edington Center to laud the project.  

"It's a long process from project idea to getting funding, to do design and then actually constructing it," said Renee Fortner, watershed resources manager for RiverLink.

She said this funding from the EEG program is a big step toward making the Southside project a reality. 

The EEG program has been in operation since 2000, Stein said, the result of an agreement between Smithfield Foods and the state Department of Justice. 

Virginia-based Smithfield provides $2 million per year toward the grants, and to date, Stein said $37 million has been awarded to more than 190 projects, including about $3 million for 27 grants in 2021. 

"RiverLink submitted a really innovative project that is a winning combination," Stein said. "(It will) improve people's lives, build stronger communities and preserve the quality of our natural resources."

The Southside project also received a $30,000 grant from the Community Foundation of Western North Carolina's Pigeon River Fund in May. 

With the EEG funding, the project is wrapping up all the funding it needs, and is on schedule to finish the final design early next year and start construction in late summer 2022, Fortner said. 

Fortner said they're waiting on one more grant, $200,000 from the state Department of Environmental Quality's Division of Water Resources, which should come by the end of October and wrap up all the funding needed for the project. 

Another $20,000 from a Buncombe County Strategic Partnerships Grant and $100,000 toward construction from the Housing Authority of Asheville round out $500,000 total.

"We've gotten feedback that has allowed us to tweak the design based on what the community wants," Fortner said. "We have overall gotten a positive response."

Only minor tweaks have been made to the plans following feedback from the community she said, including moving a shade structure that had originally been planned for an open lawn. 

After learning that local kids use it for pickup games of football and kickball, the shade structure was moved out of the center of the lawn area, Fortner said. 

"People in the community, they were very cautious at first when we brought the idea to the community," Fortner said. "The trust is broken in that community as far as things that have happened, outside groups coming saying they want to make positive change."

More:Trash Trouts to Nasty Branch: $236K from Pigeon River Fund boosts water quality projects

Stein said environmental justice is an added criteria of the Environmental Enhancement Grant program, and is "part of how the projects are evaluated, because we recognize that underserved communities experience more than their fair share of environmental problems."

A recent study showed that low-income, largely nonwhite areas of Asheville experience more unsafe environmental conditions than wealthy white neighborhoods, and the area around Erskine Apartments scored among the most vulnerable areas, according to a map created as part of the study. 

That was one of the appealing aspects of this project, Stein said.

He noted the partnership with Green Opportunities specifically, saying he toured the group's facilities and programs Oct. 14, calling them "very exciting and promising." 

Derek Lacey covers health care, growth and development for the Asheville Citizen Times. Reach him at DLacey@gannett.com or 828-417-4842 and find him on Twitter @DerekAVL.