News

Restoring water-flow control would boost Green River tourism

Tuxedo Hydro Station was severely damaged by a Helene landslide. [PHOTO BY HARRISON METZGER]

By HARRISON METZGER, Published: November 16, 2025

On June 10, 1987, a 7-foot diameter wooden pipe (flume) that carried water from the Lake Summit dam to the Tuxedo Hydro Station burst. The resulting torrent excavated 15,000 cubic yards of dirt and sent it hurdling into the Green River, shutting down the small electric generating plant for 4 1⁄2 years.

At the time I was a green police reporter at the Hendersonville Times-News, being trained by a senior reporter, Jonathan Austin, in how to decipher police scanner codes and locate house fires by following the trail of water spilled by tanker trucks on curvy mountain roads. In front page articles that week, Jonathan reported how a 200-foot section of the pipe ruptured, taking out the mountainside with it. It happened just below the “High Bridge” — a Roman arch bridge that today is preserved for pedestrians.

“Collapse of the Duke Power flume, which occurred at 7:10 a.m. Wednesday, eroded a 300-foot wide and 80-foot deep cavity in the hillside, tearing down a section of the one-mile long flume, dozens of trees, a Duke Power service road and the 12-inch water main (that carried water from Hendersonville to Saluda),” one article stated. “The silt that filled the river killed fish and damaged the ecological stability of the river, a state official said.”

It turned out most of the fish in the river survived. But due to the damage, the owner of the plant at the time (Duke Power Co., today known as Duke Energy) was unable to control the flow of water into the river.

Prior to the accident, Duke had a schedule of flow releases coinciding with power generation that allowed for downstream recreation, including fishing, canoeing, kayaking and tubing. Although the Green River Narrows was just being discovered as a destination for extreme kayaking back then, the tame Green River Cove downstream was already heavily used by local summer camps.

With the power plant out of commission, water poured over the Lake Summit Dam unregulated. This frustrated lake property owners because the lake flooded their shoreline and docks. Coming off the top of the lake, the water was also too warm for trout to thrive. So Duke came up with a temporary solution.

Initially the utility installed eight six-inch pipes to siphon cooler water from 40 feet below the surface over the dam and into the river, I reported on July 10, 1987. Later, Duke installed three large gate valves in the Lake Summit dam, allowing it to restore recreational water flows on the Green River. As I reported in 1989, the company planned to spend $7 million to build a new flume and refit the power plant with new turbines for a restart in January 1992.

A relatively low-cost solution

Today the Tuxedo Hydro Plant is again shut down due to massive damage from Hurricane Helene in September 2024. Water from Lake Summit is again pouring over the top of the dam unregulated. Northbrook Power Management, which owns the remnants of the heavily damaged power plant, has been evaluating how to proceed.

“Helene’s severe damage to both the powerhouse and pipe system means the plant is no longer able to manipulate either the natural lake levels upstream of the dam or the natural water flows downstream of the dam,” according to a statement the company issued on Dec. 12, 2024, and reported in the Lightning.

Northbrook said it is working with engineers, insurance adjusters and geotechnical experts to evaluate the project’s future.

“It will take considerable time to complete these studies and make informed decisions about whether and how to rebuild the power generation facilities and water control equipment,” the company’s statement said. “In the meantime, we are assessing the technical feasibility and cost of interim control measures at the dam that would allow some measure of control over lake levels and water releases and funding sources for such dam modifications.”

The damage to the Tuxedo Hydro Plant is so extensive that many people doubt power generation will ever be restored at the site. But there is a solution.

The three pipes that Duke installed at the Lake Summit Dam are still there, 35 years later, a rusting relic of the earlier accident. Hooking these pipes back into the dam would be a relatively low cost solution that would allow Northbrook, or future owners, to control the level of Lake Summit and release colder water into the Green for fish and recreational users. This would benefit lake property owners, anglers, whitewater paddlers and the region’s recreation economy. It would also provide opportunities for controlled whitewater releases, not only into the Upper Green, Green Narrows and Green Cove, but also in the 1.35 mile “Green Dries section” between the dam and the defunct power plant.

Last year, shortly after Helene struck, Conserving Carolina opened Bell Park honoring summer camp founders Frank and Calla Bell. The 69-acre park connects the historic High Bridge with the 14,000+ acre Green River Gamelands and includes 1.8 miles of easy trails and an observation deck above the no-longer-dry Green Dries section. With challenging class III-IV+ rapids, this section could become a valuable addition to the region’s recreational economy, drawing whitewater paddlers the same way that manmade whitewater parks do in towns across the U.S. But instead of manmade rapids, it already has natural rapids that are more challenging than anything in Henderson County, except for the Narrows downstream.

When Helene tore through WNC, it took so much, destroying lives and farms and businesses. The return of water to the formerly dry section of the Green between Lake Summit and Tuxedo Hydro is one of the few positive things to come out of the storm. Northbrook can instill a huge amount of goodwill and gratitude in the community if it is willing to invest a relatively small amount (compared to rebuilding the plant) into reestablishing recreational flows on the Green.

There are issues. Having paddled the section between the dam and powerhouse a few times this year, I know there remains a large amount of dangerous debris in the channel — mainly the many large steel hoops embedded in the river from the 1987 accident. Some local whitewater paddlers have already started the hard and thankless job of removing these hazards. Pulling out all the manmade debris, and restoring the river to its natural condition, might be costly — but not nearly as expensive as the millions many cities and towns have invested in artificial whitewater courses.

The river and rapids are already there. With reliable flows and a concerted stream restoration effort, we could have a new and exciting addition to the region’s abundance of outdoor recreation opportunities — and restore the Green River to its former glory.