Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

By Buzz Trexler
Star Correspondent

When the Elizabethton City Council voted to accept a non-matching $20,000 Brownfield Redevelopment Area Grant (BRAG) in November 2024, it seemed like a routine action to an observer.

Then, at January’s regular meeting, Council members passed a resolution authorizing the mayor to sign a $100,000 non-matching BRAG contract from the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) to conduct environmental site assessments on a 23-acre parcel at the end of Cherokee Park Drive owned by the city.

A dilapidated building on the property along the Watauga River was once a water treatment facility for the American Bemberg Corp. rayon plant. In 2009, the Tennessee Wildlife Resource Agency (TWRA) purchased the property to possibly develop a state-run fish hatchery. The idea dried up — reportedly due to lack of funding — prompting the state to donate it back to the city in May 2023.

City Manager Daniel Estes sees the grants and property transfer as part of a series of “fortuitous” events.

Parks and Recreation Director David Nanney views them as divine orchestration.

The reason: Before there was such a thing as a TDEC brownfield redevelopment grant, the “Preferred Alternative” site for the whitewater recreation project known as “Surf Betsy” was found to be near the 23-acre site — perhaps near enough to be considered the same site.

THE BIG IDEA

It’s been over seven years since a crowd of enthusiasts, curious citizens, and public officials crowded into the Bonnie Kate Theater to learn more about creating a whitewater sports park in Elizabethton.

While such in-river attractions have been around for more than 40 years — one of the oldest being the Durango Whitewater Park in Durango, Colo. — the concept of creating one locally was birthed out of the loosely organized “Elizabethton IDEAS Group,” described on its Facebook page as a group of like-minded citizens of Elizabethton and Carter County who “want to see our town and county thrive.” The group sponsored the Feb. 17, 2018, information-sharing meeting at the theater.

“It was a large crowd. It was full,” Nanney said, adding that with members of the City Council and the city manager in attendance, “that’s when it kind of got the ball rolling as far as exploring what could happen.”

Past media reports suggest the idea flowed along without any official movement other than the Parks and Recreation Department collaborating with a group of whitewater sports enthusiasts dubbed the “Surf Betsy Task Force.”

While not quite a watershed month, September 2019 saw a lot of developments.

The City Council during its regular meeting that month formed the Surf Betsy Advisory Board, following a Parks and Recreation Board’s recommendation. Appointed to the board were whitewater sports enthusiasts Wesley Bradley, Metin Eryasa, and Bill Schooley, joined by Councilmen Kim Birchfield and Wes Frazier, all of whom are on the board today.

Just days later, a group that included several city leaders journeyed to Nantahala Outdoor Center (NOC) in Bryson City, N.C. There, they went on a three-hour rafting trip and took part in a question-and-answers session with representatives of NOC, which has been around for more than 50 years. Nanney said the NOC “is a different concept, because they do more rafting and it’s a controlled environment.”

In 2020, the Parks and Recreation Department composed a 10-year master plan with a list of nine facilities projects, one of which was proceeding with Surf Betsy and aggressively marketing it as a new regional attraction. The master plan touted the positive economic impact of tourism in Carter County, particularly the generation of state and local tax revenue.

In July 2021, the City Council approved a $38,083.88 contract with RiverRestoration of Carbondale, Colo., to move forward with studies on the project.

EXPLORING THE SITES

In June 2022, RiverRestoration submitted a 60-page report on alternatives and locations for the proposed park. Each location was given a score of 1 to 5 on 30 different areas, including such site aspects as its proximity to a commercial zone, overall environmental cost, drift-boat fishing use, facilities capacity, floodplain management, commercial rafting use, and whitewater kayaking use. A score of 1 indicated it would be a more challenging site to develop; 2, challenging; 3, acceptable; 4, satisfactory; and 5, most satisfactory.

The proposed sites included:

Covered Bridge River Surf Spot, which had an overall score of 90. The study said existing facilities and access are already in place, but the site would likely have more mechanical and structural expenses. However, care of water during construction on the Doe River would be the easiest and least costly as it could be timed seasonally with low flows. The site would likely require one construction window of six months and cost $3,659,407.

Riverside Park on Watauga River is a 6.73-acre site with an overall score of 95. RiverRestoration noted the site has existing parking and facilities, so the costs could be focused on creating whitewater features. However, the whitewater features are anticipated to be more constrained by the floodplain and the whitewater experience is expected to be reduced to intermediate/beginner level due to the constraints. The study said it would likely require two annual construction windows of four months during the low-water season and cost $2,034,489.

The “Secret Spot” on Watauga River had an overall score of 100. While it would need more site development than the other two — including parking areas and facilities — those could be phased in later, the study said. The site would also be the most challenging location to control the river during construction. This site would likely require two annual construction windows of four months during the low-water season and cost $3,012,398.

‘FORTUITOUS,’ OR ‘DIVINE’

“What’s funny is it’s — what’s the phrase, fortuitous? — it was an interesting coincident in alignment of different places to try to move us in a particular direction,” Estes said, reflecting on the trajectory of the events that brought the city to this point.

“The Secret Spot is the preferred of the three. It just happens to be adjacent to the property where the TWRA was going to build a fish hatchery, which was property the city had sold them to do that project some time ago. But then that project fell by the wayside,” he said, adding that in the interim someone set a fire in the building and TWRA was struggling with what to do with the property.

“We had a conversation and said, ‘Well, we’d like to take it back if we could.’ But it took a little time for that to come through,” Estes said. “But those pieces really fall together. Because if you’re gonna build, the location you really want to have has riverfront acreage adjacent because folks may want to view it and watch — it’s going to be a spectator sport. But also, if you’re going to put in and take out, you want to have up- and downstream of it to some degree.

“Well, we’re not gonna go on the other side of the river,” Estes said. “It’s all private property, so we’re lucky enough to pick this property back up.”

Estes suggests there’s another part where the stars seemed to align: After the city reacquired the 23-acre site adjacent to The Secret Spot, the Brownfield Redevelopment Area Grant became available for the first time. The grant is in three phases: identification, investigation, and mitigation.

“We’re going to go apply for the mitigation grant from them to get state money in to help us remediate the issues,” Estes said. “But it needs to be on publicly owned property. So, if we hadn’t gotten the land…”

“Boy, it looks like we planned all that way, but things fell in our direction, yeah,” he said.

“It looks like the Providence of God, is what it looks like it,” Nanney said. “That’s the way I look at it.”

‘NOT SPLASH COUNTRY’

For people who are not whitewater sports enthusiasts — such as kayakers, rafters, or paddleboarders—the term “whitewater park” may evoke images of a popular Pigeon Forge theme park.

“Here’s the challenge for some: if you say it’s a ‘whitewater park,’” said Estes. “It’s not Splash Country in Dollywood. It’s difficult to articulate what it clearly means unless you use a lot of words.

“It’s building water features into the riverbed that create waves that are exciting, or interesting, or challenging for kayakers to use in the river,” he said.

When it was first presented at the Bonnie Kate, supporters presented an initial concept on a foam display board that is still on hand at the Parks and Recreation Department.

It’s difficult to find a recent comprehensive list of such parks in the U.S., but a 2016 feature in Paddling Magazine gave a “best estimate” of about 60. The closest one to Elizabethton is the U.S. National Whitewater Center in Charlotte, N.C., but that is about to change.

About four miles outside of Asheville, N.C., the Town of Woodfin is in the first phase of an estimated $4.8 million world-class river park “perfect for a broad range of kayakers and surfers with intermediate to advanced skill,” according to the town’s parks and greenways website. The Taylor’s Wave project is named for Taylor Hunt, an expert paddler who died in a 2015 whitewater accident in Ecuador.

According to an Asheville Citizen-Times report, officials feared the in-stream construction that began in July 2024 was lost to the damage wrought by Hurricane Helene. However, once the flood waters receded, officials said they were “cautiously optimistic” the project would continue to move forward.

Construction of Taylor’s Wave is financed through bonds issued by the Town of Woodfin, as well as donations from Friends of the Woodfin Greenway and Blueway, Buncombe County Tourism Development Authority’s Tourism Product Development Fund, and private donors.

In June 2022, the city of Roanoke announced plans to build an in-river kayak park in the Roanoke River, the first in Virginia. On Dec. 30, 2024, the city awarded a $5.6 million contract with Environmental Quality Resources (EQR) to construct the park. According to the Roanoke Outside Foundation, construction is set to begin this spring, with a completion date in late 2026.

WHY THE SLOW FLOW…

Estes and Nanney acknowledge there are people who say the Elizabethton project is taking too long.

“Our intention is to do our due diligence, because we don’t have the revenue sitting aside, we don’t have money set aside to go do this project,” Estes said. “And even if we did, we think it’s a valuable use of taxpayers’ money to do the investigative portions to make sure what we have as a vision has a plan that’s viable, that we can execute.”

Once that due diligence is done, Estes said, the next step is finding a way to fund the project, and to do that the city needs something like a business plan when submitting grant applications.

“We can say we’ve already done the preliminary design. We pick the preferential site, we can go back to them and say, ‘Can you dust off your numbers for current and give us some preliminary updated cost estimates?’ And here’s what the return would be as far as a draw to our community,” he said. “This is the impact for outdoor recreation and tourism. That’s how you’re going to go to folks on like the outdoor recreation side of TDEC and make a pitch.”

Clay Guerry, recreation specialist with Tennessee Valley Authority, said while the agency does not have grants or other funding available for projects like Surf Betsy, the agency can provide technical support to help guide the project through the permitting process.

“TVA has supported public access projects on the Watauga River to expand recreation in the area,” he said. “We have also worked with the University of Tennessee on the RiverLine project, which connects outdoor recreation along the Tennessee River.”

AND ALONG CAME HELENE

As summer was giving way to fall in 2024, city officials and the Surf Betsy Advisory Board received a long-awaited economic impact report from Southwick Associates. Soon afterward, on Sept. 28, the city was among the areas devastated by Hurricane Helene.

In its wake, Elizabethton was left with the destruction of infrastructure and city parks — especially Cat Island and Edwards Island, but also other Parks and Recreation properties. The city is working to restore the parks to pre-flood level, or better, and it’s where Nanney and others have been devoting significant time and effort, especially with Cat Island, which sees a lot of use during the baseball season.

“Frankly, all the other things we had on our wish list, or to-do list, got pushed to the side until we can manage that,” the city manager said.

“We’ve been trying to get them up and running for their season,” Nanney said of the Cat Island ballfields.

But that does not mean Surf Betsy is out of sight.

“It’s just like any project,” Nanney said. “It takes more time than what you could conceivably think, even before it gets to the point of construction.”

Surf Betsy remains a priority, Nanney said, “but it’s not the No. 1 priority.”