Chairman’s Message 2006

by Peggy Melville

As we complete 10 years of grantmaking, the Board of the Pigeon River Fund celebrates awarding more than $2.3 million to environmental organizations that are working to improve water quality in the Pigeon and French Broad river basins. This fund was established by Progress Energy and the State of North Carolina to support projects in Haywood, Buncombe and Madison counties.

Grants have focused on addressing the Pigeon River Fund’s key objectives:

• To improve surface water quality, with an emphasis on reducing erosion and sedimentation by constructing erosion buffers on stream banks; demonstrating best management practices for construction of stormwater runoff filters; and encouraging water quality monitoring through Volunteer Water Information Network.
  
• To increase citizens’ awareness about their roles in protecting water quality by supporting hands-on environmental education for school children, implementing an environmental science curriculum in fifth and eighth-grade classes in Haywood County, and sponsoring workshops for teachers, public officials, contractors, and homeowners.
  
• To expand public use and access to waterways by contributing to the creation of miles of new greenway in Canton, Fletcher, Mars Hill, Swannanoa, and Waynesville; expanding new wetlands and fish habitats; and removing 100 tons of trash from waterways.

Many excellent organizations, whose dedicated staff and volunteers have developed and implemented these projects, have made this work successful. Pigeon River Fund dollars have also been used to leverage an additional $7.5 million in federal and/or state funding to implement major improvement projects in our communities.

In the future, the Pigeon River Fund will continue to support efforts to balance environmental concerns and economic development in order to protect our wonderful quality of life in Western North Carolina.

The Pigeon River Fund of The Community Foundation
of Western North Carolina
      P.O. Box 1888 Asheville, NC 28802
Phn 828 254-4960     Fax 828 251-2258