Buncombe County Approved For First Round of Emergency Watershed Protection Program

This week, Buncombe County announced that it received the first round of funding approved for the Emergency Watershed Protection Program. The United States Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service approved Buncombe County’s request for the Emergency Watershed Protection (EWP) program. This program provides post-disaster funding for emergency repairs to streambanks, removing storm debris from streams to protect infrastructure. The approved $37.4 million will fund projects for streams impacted by Hurricane Helene.  

Buncombe County is still working to secure additional funds to implement the full program.  

Once all contracts are in place and additional funding is secured, the County will issue a Request for Qualifications to find engineering services for the project design and implementation. Expected completion time for EWP is two to five years due to the number of sites and complexity of the projects. Staff is working diligently through the processes and appreciates the patience and cooperation of all involved.   

Over the course of the program’s initial stages, a 46-person team of Buncombe County Soil & Water Conservation District staff and partners from across the state conducted 492 site visits and received approval for 209 project sites. EWP will provide engineered repairs for these 209 projects at no cost to the landowner. 

This is the first project dealing with Helene, but Buncombe County has administered similar projects before, including multiple projects related to Florence and Fred.