Asheville Bird Sanctuary Compromised

A bird sanctuary is compromised after an attempt to fix a sinkhole in Asheville. The sinkhole began forming along Merrimon Avenue on June 19th because of a failing water pipe. Asheville city officials say because the sinkhole formed on private property, it is the property owners’ responsibility to fix it.

The property owners worked with engineers to find a way to fix the sinkhole. The plan they came up with would take at least a month to get all of the materials they need. In the meantime, they decided on a bypass pipe as a temporary fix in order to save the structure of the building.

However, the temporary fix had unintended results. The bypass pipe ended up washing material into Elisha Mitchell Audubon Society’s (EMAS) Beaver Lake Bird Sanctuary. Officials from the wetland and bird sanctuary say the material from the sinkhole has completely compromised how the wetland functions. Sediment and debris has filled the waterways and is now causing a muddy mess where there was once free moving fresh water. The 8-acre wetland is open to visitors and is a habitat to a number of different birds, as well as part of a bigger plan to protect water quality in the area. 

“The Elisha Mitchell Audubon Society is distressed about the severe damage to the Ecofilter Wetland in our Beaver Lake Bird Sanctuary,” Tom Tibble who is the President of EMAS tells us, “ This wetland, which was established with funding from the North Carolina Clean Water Management Trust Fund, is designed to protect the water quality of Beaver Lake and waterways downstream, including the French Broad River.”

Tibble says until the temporary bypass pipe is replaced, the flow of materials will probably continue. The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality has issued a notice of violation to the owners of the property where the sinkhole is. The property owners are now working with an engineer to get a plan moving to fix it as soon as possible. We will keep you updated as we learn new developments in this story.