RiverLink is proud to partner with all the local microbreweries in the region to celebrate Winter Warmer again this year. Winter Warmer will take place at the Asheville Civic Center from 3–7 p.m. on January 21. It’s no surprise that Asheville is Beer City USA, as we have innovative and creative, word-class beer makers. You know what’s equally important? We also have really great water. You need great water to make great beer—and we have both.

RiverLink is again dedicating all the donations from Winter Warmer to our greenway development fund. What better way to celebrate the river than to build greenways so everyone can access and enjoy this precious natural resource. We all own it and we all share it—rights and responsibilities.

We’re working on a number of greenways, including Karen Cragnolin Park on Amboy Road. This was the missing link in the Wilma Dykeman RiverWay after we built French Broad River Park and purchased and developed Carrier Park at the old Asheville Speedway on Amboy Road. Right in the middle of these two was a junkyard that advertised "Buy your trucK parts in the parK." Well, good news. this past year, we made the final payment on the junkyard and the property has been renamed Karen Cragnolin Park.

It may not look as though much has happened there yet, but we’re making progress. Don’t be fooled by the overgrown brush that covers the nearly six-acre site. We’ve been hard at work assessing the contamination, recycling an estimated 100,000 tons of concrete, and exploring the possibilities for a new link in the Wilma Dykeman RiverWay. We donated an easement across the front of the property so that a sidewalk could be constructed linking the two existing greenways.

Next steps include a phytoremediation at the site, a technique that uses nature’s healing properties (plants) to clean up contaminated soils. Over the winter, you will see more activity as we dig up the entire site, recycle the last of the concrete, and plant native grasses infused with a specially grown bacteria that only lives on the contaminates contained in the soil.

If you’d like to tour the site, join us on January 11 at 11 a.m. and at 4 p.m. at Karen Cragnolin Park on Amboy Road. If you don’t want to stand in the cold, we are hosting a similar information and question session on January 18 at noon and again at 5:30 p.m. at RiverLink’s Warehouse Studios building, 170 Lyman Street.

So i look forward to seeing you in 2012. Happy New Year!

Karen Cragnolin is the executive director of RiverLink, a regional nonprofit organization spearheading the economic and environmental revitalization of the French Broad River and its tributaries as a place to work, live, and play. For more information, visit riverlink.org or call 828.252.8474, ext. 16.