Residents press IPEX to clean PVC pollution from French Broad River

Pressure is building on IPEX to help clear PVC pollution from the French Broad River, where MountainTrue says thousands of pieces still remain scattered after Hurricane Helene and roughly 80% of the debris collected in Woodfin has been pipe from IPEX.

The Asheville-based environmental group says it has spent the past 20 months pulling storm debris from the river and believes much of the waste came from IPEX facilities hit during flooding. In Woodfin, just downstream from the Metropolitan Sewerage District dam, MountainTrue said its Asheville crew removed more than 40,000 pounds of pipe and other debris over the previous month in a March 11, 2026 report. The group also said 40% of the material it was recovering from the IPEX facility in Woodfin to Lake Douglas was PVC pipe made by IPEX.

MountainTrue has launched a public-action campaign asking IPEX to step up with cleanup and prevention efforts, and it says close to half of the debris recovered downstream of the plant is IPEX-branded PVC pipe. The group says it has repeatedly reached out to the company and has not received a response. That silence has sharpened complaints from residents and advocates who want the company to help remove the remaining pipe and prevent more material from washing into the river system.

Town leaders in Woodfin say they want IPEX involved as well. Town manager Shannon Tuch said local officials had previously tried to find grants that the town and company could pursue together to study the problem and come up with a solution. For a river that threads through Asheville, Woodfin and the rest of Buncombe County, the issue has become more than an environmental cleanup. MountainTrue says the French Broad supports parks, greenways and tourism, so debris in the water has direct consequences for recreation, neighborhood quality of life and confidence in the county’s post-Helene recovery.

The cleanup effort is being funded by a $10 million grant from the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality and runs under an 18-month, $10 million contract to address Helene debris across Western North Carolina. MountainTrue has said the work has also expanded into Tennessee because rivers do not stop at state lines. River debris cleanup in Buncombe County was expected to be finished by June 1 in many areas, but harder-to-reach stretches remain, keeping the pressure on IPEX to take part in the next phase of recovery.