News

LIGHTNING EDITORIAL: Our future is blue and green

By Bill Moss, Published: November 20, 2014

The development of a new boat launch on the French Broad River could be viewed as a boost for recreation. It is that and more.

The gift by the Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy of 1.7 acres on the French Broad River at the U.S. 64 bridge in Etowah is part of a network of recreation, greenways and blueways that will help drive economic development in Henderson County for the next generation.
The Henderson County Board of Commissioners still doesn't quite grasp it but the rest of the community, including business leaders, is ahead of our elected leaders. The Chamber of Commerce has endorsed the Ecusta Trail from Hendersonville to Brevard. Behind the scenes, the Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. is driving interest in both French Broad River and bike paths as recreation-transportation. That interest rises from the Grossman family's longtime interest in bicycling — Sierra Nevada founder Ken Grossman ran a bicycle repair shop before he started the craft brewery — its present-day interest in sales. Both the French Broad and a proposed N.C. 280 bikeway lead to the brewery property.
Put-ins at Blantyre and Etowah and a prospective new boat launch on the Mills River at Mills River Town Park a few hundred yards from the French Broad would give boaters more options for kayaking and canoe trips.
In Hendersonville, the City Council cautiously endorsed a grant application for a bike path study for the city and at the same meeting endorsed a $250,000 grant application for Berkeley Park improvements, which includes an Oklawaha Greenway extension.
It does not take a genius cartographer to map out the potential here, by land and by river. The young and fit could bike from Hendersonville or Brevard to Etowah and take a canoe trip to the next put-in. A bike path that links Berkeley Park to Jackson Park to the Ecusta Trail to Brevard to Mills River creates a perimeter that encircles three-quarters of the county — with hundreds of entry and exit points.
The rise of recreation as part of a broad development plan dovetails as well with the trends of health care, which demand greater patient ownership of health, better fitness and better diet. And it makes our area more attractive to the recreation-oriented baby boom retirement wave.
The French Broad boat ramp is just one more signal that Henderson County is poised to make an even bigger splash in recreation, economic growth and quality of life.