As Asheville waits for clean water, aid groups set up sustainable options

BUNCOMBE COUNTY, N.C. — Water service is returning to Asheville and other areas of the county hit hard by Hurricane Helene, but while the water may be flowing, officials say it could still take weeks before it’s safe to drink — at least without boiling it first.

The North Fork Reservoir that serves roughly 160,000 people in the county was significantly damaged during Hurricane Helene. While much of the infrastructure has been repaired, the water itself needs to be treated to clear out all of the sediment and whatever else may have washed in during the storm.

That’s why for weeks, much of the city’s been relying on bottled water from aid stations. But standard 16.9-ounce water bottles can only go so far, and when you’re using it for drinking, washing dishes, food preparation, or bathing, empty bottles can pile up quickly.

To Rob Lenfestey, who lives about 40 minutes north of Asheville, it feels like a disaster that never should have happened.

“To think that people are using bottled water right now to flush their toilets, to clean, to wash their hands — from an ecological perspective is devastating,” he said. “Here we are in southern Appalachia, where we have robust clean water that is flowing all the time.”

Clean water is the reason he moved to the mountains and opened his retreat, Mandala Springs, near the headwaters of a fresh, underground spring.

“It’s completely contained with Pisgah National Forest on all sides,” he said of the location. “You have some of the best spring water and one of the most clean and most uncontaminated water resources in the region.”

Lenfestey built a well to tap into the system and it’s been supplying Mandala Springs for years. He drinks it himself, shares it with any interested visitors and uses the water in his on-site chocolate factory.

Now, in the wake of Hurricane Helene, he’s working to ensure the water goes further. The retreat center now serves as a temporary shelter for displaced people in the region. Mandala Springs has been filling up 275 to 300-gallon containers with its spring water to distribute to aid centers.

“Yesterday alone, we were able to move 10,000 gallons of water into Asheville,” Lenfestey said. “We’re hoping that by next week we can increase that to 20,000.”

That’s the equivalent of more than 150,000 standard plastic bottles, though in the coming weeks, Lenfestey said he plans to ramp that up to 50,000 gallons. He said the on-site well can easily handle that volume, but it’s a matter of getting water trucks or containers big enough to move the resource more efficiently.

“It’s actually pretty impressive how much water we can go through,” he said. “We’ll drop off 1,000 gallons at a distribution center and the next day they’ll say we’re out. We need more.”

In Asheville neighborhoods, disaster relief organizations are working on providing self-sustaining solutions. Americares in partnership with Planet Water is at several creek sites within the city to pump water into small reservoirs and filter it on-site so locals can refill their own water containers every day.

Ingrid Johnson helps manage one of the aid sites in the Emma neighborhood. She said with help from Footprint Project to set up a small solar system to power the pumps and filters, the water system can run on its own most of the day.

“This is a self-contained system,” she said. “Folks can come fill up on water with buckets and take back home because we’re unclear on when the city water is going to be potable.”

Before the system got up and running, she said the installation team with Americares tested the creek water to see if it met the cleanliness and safety standards to even qualify as a filterable source. Satisfied with those results, Johnson said she felt comfortable drinking it herself and opening up the resource to the neighborhood.

“There’s so much need,” she said. “Just bathing, washing dishes — so much need. Like as of now, I mean there’s just a need for a lot of water.”

With everything that flowed through the city, its creeks and even the water supply, many in and around Asheville told Channel 9 crews they had doubts about what was and wasn’t safe to drink.

Lenfestey said Mandala Springs is cognizant of that and has been including information about their latest quality tests on signs with each of their donations.

“We need to make sure that everyone has the cleanest and best water that they possibly can through the duration of this disaster,” he said.

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