Join Conserving Carolina and MountainTrue on Saturday, November 2, at 10:30 a.m. at the Anne Elizabeth Suratt Nature Center at Walnut Creek Preserve to hear David Weintraub, Executive Director of the Center for Cultural Preservation and director of the film, “Guardians of our Troubled Waters,” for a discussion and exhibition of the film.

What if we could smell our local rivers long before we could see them? What if our legacy was dead streams, poisonous water and a dying ecosystem? This was the story of our community not very long ago. Mark Twain remarked that many of the rivers he observed were “too thin to plow but too thick to drink” and that describes the French Broad River, the Pigeon, the Swannanoa, the Mills and the Green and many other regional waterways.

 

Industry brought better paying jobs to our community but they also brought in pollution so toxic that it killed the fish, the cows and in some cases, the community where cancer rates were off the charts. Many people grew up believing that all rivers were supposed to be brown and smelly and distasteful. But enter the River Heroes who said NO to their destruction. People like Wilma Dykeman in WNC and East Tennessee, Marjory Stoneman Douglas in Florida, the Upper French Broad Defense Association in NC and the Dead Pigeon River Council in Tennessee.  

 

Their passion, their activism and their call to save our waterways awoke our communities to the need for river stewardship. Their call still echoes today in the environmental efforts, land conservancies, river keepers, green businesses and engaged communities who are working to be the stewards nature is asking us to be. The Center for Cultural Preservation, WNC’s History and Documentary Film Center, is proud to announce the release of award-winning film director David Weintraub’s new film on the ordinary people who did extraordinary things to protect southern rivers and streams. Guardians of Our Troubled Waters is the Center’s sixth feature film that connects people to their rich cultural and natural history. 

 

Guardians chronicles these stories and the early heroes who stood up against the destruction fighting against toxic pollution from factories, rampant draining of wetlands and the damming of tributaries that would have forced thousands of farmers from their ancestral land. The film focuses on three communities: Western North Carolina, East Tennessee, and South Florida as well as the heroes who stood up against those who were killing our rivers including the savior of the French Broad, Wilma Dykeman, grand dame of the Everglades, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, and the protectors of the Pigeon River, the Dead Pigeon River Council and many others who carry on the fight today as the eyes and ears of our waterways.

 

According to Director Weintraub, “So much of what we take for granted today, whitewater rafting and kayaking, fishing, drinking water and the thriving brewery community harkens back to those who refused to allow profits to come before human health and the health of river ecosystems. These stories are vital because they remind us about who we are and why our natural resources are critical for our survival and that of our cherished wildlife.”

 

The film is a collaboration with the Eastern Band of Cherokee, Wilma Dykeman Legacy Foundation, MountainTrue, Conserving Carolina, Haywood Waterways Association, Friends of the Everglades, and Clean Water Expected in East Tennessee. Major sponsors include the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area, the Community Foundation of Henderson County, the McClure Education Foundation, the Pigeon River Fund, Gaia Herbs, and Prestige Subaru with additional support from Headwaters Outfitters and Mast General Store.

 

The discussion and film screening is part of Conserving Carolina’s monthly Speaker Series at Walnut Creek Preserve.      

 

The next program at Walnut Creek Preserve will be held on January 18, when Dr. Mattie Decker will discuss “Nature Forest Therapy.” 

 

For more information visit, www.conservingcarolina.org.

 

Pam Torlina