ASHEVILLE, N.C. (WLOS) — The City of Asheville is getting ready to begin debris removal operations at the North Fork Watershed, over a year after Helene left a path of devastation and crippled Asheville’s water supply.

“This will have a positive long-term effect on our watershed. It’ll keep it strong and viable, make it more resilient for future storms. And so we’re excited that this work is getting underway,” said Clay Chandler, the PIO for Asheville Water Resources.

CITY OFFICIALS, PARTNERS WORK TO PROTECT ASHEVILLE’S WATER SYSTEM FROM FUTURE DISASTERS

The City of Asheville clarifies that the reason for this work is not because the dam is unsafe. Officials say that the project is designed to safely and responsibly dispose of storm debris, protect the city’s drinking water system by maintaining water flow and flood prevention, and reduce the risk of wildfire damage in sensitive watershed areas.

“Where you have big piles of that debris can be really dangerous, because it offers fire. Any low burning, low intensity fire that might ignite can then climb up those big stacks of fuel,” said Rusty Painter, the Land Protection Director at Conservation Trust for North Carolina which enforces the property’s conservation easement, a legal agreement that protects the land’s natural resources. “I’m glad that they’re past the triage and past the point of just getting water out again to customers, and now we can kind of shift focus onto restoring some of the areas that are up in the watershed.”

U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS UNVEILS NEW TREATMENT PROJECT TO ‘PRE-CLEAN’ ASHEVILLE WATER

Chandler says that because there’s a lot of debris on the ground, there’s more sediment that can wash into the reservoirs during a severe weather event.

“It would put our filters at risk and make us probably completely reliant on the temporary pretreatment systems that have been in place at North Fork and Bee Tree since late last year. Thankfully, Imelda looks like she is going to turn out to sea,” Chandler said.

Storm removal operations will start this week, and the city plans to finish by early April, officials said.