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By Buzz Trexler
Star Correspondent

Metin Eryasa is obviously in familiar territory as he leads along a gravel path between Riverview Townhomes and the Watauga River.

As we walk along the river, the winter wind is blowing, and the Watauga makes a roaring sound as it flows along.

We’re here because, after a nearly hourlong conversation in a busy downtown Elizabethton coffee shop filled with the hissing and gurgling of espresso machines and the chatter of a lunch crowd, the whitewater enthusiast credited as being among those who birthed the idea of Surf Betsy suggests a visit to “The Secret Spot” would help orient me as to the island site’s location.

The Secret Spot is one of three sites proposed by RiverRestoration, the Carbondale, Colorado, firm the city of Elizabethton has contracted with for the project; in fact, it is the “preferred site.”

“Right now’s a great time because there’s no leaves on the trees,” he says before we leave The Coffee Company.

The coffee shop conversation had been difficult — not only because the environment made it hard for us to hear one another, but because Eryasa has lived with the dream of Surf Betsy for 10 years and has become discouraged by what he calls “a slog through the jungle.”

I’ve only lived with the concept of a whitewater park for a few weeks, largely aided in my understanding through documents received by way of an open records request and interviews with city officials and Surf Betsy Advisory Board members.

“I’ve been working on it for 10 years, and I don’t feel like I’ve gotten anywhere,” Eryasa said when first contacted by phone in early February. During that same conversation, Eryasa, who has been a member of the Surf Betsy Advisory Board since its inception in 2019, said the board had been “disbanded.”

Having just interviewed Bill Schooley, who chairs the board, his words came as a shock.

The more I learned, though, the more I understood why Eryasa made the statement. I decided it was, in a word, frustration—but not reality.

Alive, but stalled

Elizabethton City Manager Daniel Estes and Parks and Recreation Director David Nanney are adamant during interviews that Surf Betsy remains a priority—just not the top priority when considering other projects, especially after the devastation wrought by Hurricane Helene.

Likewise, interviews with Eryasa’s fellow advisory board members, who are also whitewater enthusiasts—Schooley and Wesley Bradley—give no indication the project is dead on the table, only that it has spent a long time on the table, and perhaps too long.

From all indications, the advisory board is alive, though it may be hard to tell—especially since the city is still in recovery mode.

“It’s just meeting as new things develop, and as of late there’s not much,” Bradley says of the board. “We’ve definitely, since Helene, put a pause on everything, to say, ‘Hey, this is not the time to deal with this. We’ve got to let our area recover.’”

Still, Bradley says the project is in something of a stall.

“The last two years of this project have been at a stalemate, just with lack of enthusiasm from many in the city,” he says.

As to why progress has slowed and enthusiasm has waned, Schooley says he thinks there are those who misunderstand how revenue will be generated, including some city officials who thought revenue would come directly from the park into city coffers.

“I don’t think that will ever happen,” he says. “There is no way to charge an entry fee to a public park.”

“I think that maybe that was the desire, or the dream, of city officials, that we would be able to directly monetize it and pay back the investment, the large investment, that’s required for the park,” Schooley says, explaining that those who develop and invest in such parks understand that the benefit is indirect through an increase in sales tax revenue and the intangibles that come with this type of outdoor recreation.

Which brings us back to “The Secret Spot.”

Schooley says the project is not feasible without the 23-acre parcel that is the focus of brownfield identification, investigation, and mitigation grants through the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation.

“You have to have shoreside amenities,” he said. “And if you don’t have that, having something in the river really doesn’t …,” he says, trailing off. “I mean, it’s good, but I don’t think it becomes a park. And the vision that we have for Surf Betsy doesn’t really manifest until there is a nice place to come and experience it, both in the river and on land.”

Fortunately, the city has been awarded the first two grants. If the city obtains the mitigation grant when the brownfield investigation process is completed, it would be “fortuitous,” as Estes phrased it in one of the interviews.

Nanney might even say it was “divine.”

Vision still alive

Walking along the gravel trail, Eryasa pauses to greet a woman before continuing to an overlook with a picnic table where he points out the island, which at first is barely discernible to me—until I see a small flow of water on the other side.

I then imagine the river as it would be when there is a release from Wilbur Dam—and the island is clear.

As Eryasa explains how the island would separate the kayakers from those who are float fishing the channel on the far side, the potential of The Secret Spot, with its proximity to the brownfield site and the Riverside Park site, becomes clearer.

And as he talks about the potential of developing other nearby city-owned property, his countenance changes somewhat.

Eryasa points to a city-owned parcel across the river, saying, “This would make an amazing campground.”

He then points to another spot.

“I’m thinking in terms of a pedestrian bridge across the river, down there or down there.”

His eyes scan the riverfront, and Eryasa speaks of riverside restaurants, a climbing wall, other amenities, and related businesses.

“Basically, you turn this area here into a little canoeing, kayak village. … Over here, you can build the viewing stands.”

As we leave, the wind is still blowing.

The river is still running with a roar.

And Eryasa’s vision of Surf Betsy is alive and well.