Trout Unlimited’s project managers are accustomed to encountering challenges in the field.
Jeff Wright, who until recently was TU’s Southern Appalachians program manager, had no idea what he was to face for a major culvert replacement project deep in the Pisgah National Forest in North Carolina.
Hurricane Helene, which devastated swaths of the landscape across the Southeast early in the fall of 2024, set in motion a cascade of complications. Colder-than-usual winter weather and a disruptive temporary freeze on federal funding added insult to injury.
But the crew persevered, completing the massive project this summer.
The project addressed two adjacent problematic culverts where Catheys Creek and a smaller tributary converge. A tumbling freestone stream with native brook trout and wild brown trout, Catheys Creek eventually pours into the French Broad River near Brevard.
“They were both overly narrow for the streams and one of them was perched, creating a compete barrier to fish passage,” said Wright. “They were narrow for the stream morphology. There was erosion happening around the outlets, there was bed and bank erosion upstream, and the culverts were often getting blocked with material.”
The site was among those identified by TU volunteers who fanned out across the region more than five years ago to survey road stream crossings. The U.S. Forest Service prioritized the project in a Watershed Restoration Action Plan.
Federal funding covered a significant portion of the project’s roughly $800,000 cost, with a $230,000 grant from North Carolina’s Land and Water Fund providing critical matching funds.
TU oversaw construction, which got underway late in the summer of 2024, shortly before Helene’s arrival.
While the site was not significantly impacted by the storm, the impact on project was unavoidable.
“The hurricane interrupted workflow, period,” Wright said.
Heavy equipment contractors were pulled away for critical acute needs in nearby communities. Supplies like gravel were difficult to source.
“Then we ended up having one of the coldest winters that we’ve had since I’ve lived here, and we lost a month to that,” Wright said. “And then we lost another month and a half to the federal funding freeze.
“It was just a lot that was outside the contractor’s control.”
The site itself proved challenging, too, because it was difficult to fully divert flows from the work sites.
The work was finally completed in late spring, and Wright signed off on the big project in early June.
Having recently obtained his drone pilot license, Wright flew over the site to get a bird’s eye view.
“One picture I got is pretty cool,” he said. “You can see the restoration site but then you’ve got our TU tent visible, too.”
TU and the Forest Service will be collaborating on a significant number of projects in 2026. Projects will include additional crossing repairs and replacements, stream habitat restoration, and decommissioning and obliteration of long-abandoned roads that are eroding and contributing sediment to streams.
Some of the work was included in Watershed Restoration Action Plans, but TU is also collaborating with the Forest Service to address Helene-related damage.