Equinox Environmental

10/23/2026

We are very proud to announce that three of our recent projects were the recipients of the American Planning Association - North Carolina Chapter's Marvin Collins Planning Award. Congratulations to Henderson County, Wake County, and Jackson County!

Our staff attended this week's conference in Cherokee, NC to receive the awards and present on one of the projects. We are extremely grateful that these three communities put their trust in us to help them plan for their future. Each of these projects were very unique and relied on diverse skillsets to help the communities achieve their goals:

1) Henderson County's Hickory Nut Gorge Recovery Plan serves is a community-driven, 10-year recovery plan led by a Community Partners Group and Equinox that blends ecological restoration, resilient infrastructure, and inclusive engagement to guide long-term recovery and community resilience after Hurricane Helene devastated the local communities of Bat Cave, Gerton, and a portion of Edneyville. Thank you to Henderson's Planning staff who attended the awards ceremony with us and allowed us to present on the complexities of the project.

2) Wake County Government Soil and Water Conservation District's Farmland Preservation Plan: This countywide plan provides one of NC's fastest-growing counties with a comprehensive, data-driven roadmap to protect its remaining farms and working lands while also balancing economic development, backed by local and federal funding and over 1,000 community voices.

3) Jackson County NC Government's Headwaters District Conservation Plan is a first-of-its-kind, community-supported blueprint balancing conservation and responsible development across 170,000 acres containing the headwaters of four major river systems that eventually flow from the continental divide to the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. A special thank you to MountainTrue and other community partners on this project.

10/12/2026

The Great Terrain Robbery: a story of a shifting divide, stream piracy, and narrowly endemic species. (Nerdy enough for you?)
Did you know that rivers can actually steal from each other? It is a well-documented geologic phenomenon called "stream capture" or "stream piracy". This happens when a waterway erodes into a divide and diverts an adjacent waterway into itself.
Here in WNC, along the Blue Ridge Escarpment, erosion is causing the escarpment to steadily retreat westward. This has some amazing biological impacts, leading us to our next nerdy topic.
Recently, scientists with the NC Wildlife Resources Commission and NC Museum of Natural Sciences described two entirely new species of crayfish, the Stony Fork Crayfish (Cambarus lapidosus) and the Falls Crayfish (Cambarus burchfielae), in the nearby Yadkin River basin of NC. Researchers hypothesize that a stream capture event transferred the ancestors of these crayfish from the New River basin across the continental divide and into the Yadkin River basin. Because they were isolated by this geologic shift, these species are narrowly distributed in just a few small headwater streams. This is an example of endemism. Endemism is the ecological state of a species being native to a single, defined geographic location and found nowhere else naturally.
This graphic from Perkins et al. (2023) shows how this process occurs:
i. Initially, the Eastern Continental Divide (ECD) formed a strict geographic barrier separating the higher-elevation New River basin from the Yadkin River basin. Each basin housed its own distinct ancestral crayfish species.
ii. Over time, erosion along the steeper eastern slope caused the escarpment to retreat westward. This erosion effectively "captured" the New River headwaters, dumping the ancestral Cambarus aff. robustus across the divide and into the Yadkin basin.
iii. As the ECD continued to shift further inland, the captured crayfish were trapped. Isolated by the newly formed divide above and a natural waterfall barrier below, they evolved into a unique, narrowly endemic species (Cambarus lapidosus).
Check out the links in our bio to learn more about the cool research being conducted by the NC Wildlife Resources Commission and NC Museum of Natural Sciences!
📸: Graphics and Research by: Perkins, Michael & Williams, Bronwyn & Russ, William. (2023). Integrative taxonomy reveals two new narrowly-endemic crayfish species (Decapoda: Cambaridae) from the Yadkin River Basin in western North Carolina, USA. Zootaxa. Zootaxa. 207-230. 10.11646/zootaxa.5270.2.3.

For more information, please visit the NC Wildlife Resources Commission at www.ncwildlife.gov, and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences at www.natural sciences.org.

09/18/2026

We really cannot express just how grateful we are to have been selected to lead this incredible park planning project!

It's exciting that the years of work that we and so many others have put into this acquisition have led us to the task at hand: to plan a new county park, one with a unique history, geography, and ecology, and a complex social fabric that surrounds it. Endless thanks to Jay Leutze, the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy, Buncombe County Staff and Elected Officials, Buncombe County Parks & Recreation, the North Carolina Land and Water Fund, the Outdoor Recreation Legacy Partnership, the North Carolina Natural Heritage Program, and so many others who have stayed committed to this endeavor.

Our 26 years in business have been spent working with our clients and partners to achieve "Balance Through Proper Planning", and we are honored to have been awarded this opportunity to continue our mission to work with clients to build community, protect and restore the region's natural resources, plan for ecological sustainability, and design resilient and regenerative landscapes.

We recognize that there are challenges ahead of us, but we actually find that to be quite inspiring, and we look forward to meeting them head-on and working with our community to create a plan for Deaverview that is rooted in inclusivity, conservation, and sustainable recreation.

Stay Tuned!

At the meeting on Tuesday, September 15, the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners approved a $1.39 million contract with Equinox Environmental to develop master plan and engineering designs for the newly acquired Deaverview Mountain. The Asheville-based firm was chosen after a competitive procurement process.

The two-phase master planning project will include community outreach, environmental and trail assessments, future funding recommendations, and planning for access, parking, trails, restrooms and viewsheds. A future third phase will include construction of trails, access improvements, and viewshed amenities.

This exciting step comes after Buncombe County finalized the acquisition of the 342+ acre Deaverview Mountain property this past spring. The 100% grant-funded acquisition was made possible by an Outdoor Recreation Legacy Partnership (ORLP) grant awarded to Buncombe County and a North Carolina Land and Water Fund (LWF) grant awarded to Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy (SAHC).

Learn more about Deaverview Mountain by visiting on our website and clicking on Ongoing Projects.

📸 by Francis Nullet, via SAHC

09/16/2026

In case you missed it, Conserving Carolina is out there doing the hard work to protect and restore Southern Appalachia’s most special places!

Our Ecologist, Owen, is featured in this article about one of CC’s latest conservation successes close to Chimney Rock State Park.

For over 26 years, Equinox has fostered success and resilience by sticking to our mission. Working with Conserving Carolina (and other regional conservation organizations), private landowners, and public entities, we’ve helped protect and restore land, water, and habitats, and guided our clients to strike a sustainable balance when developing in ecologically sensitive places.

A conservation easement now protects 121 acres with incredible biodiversity and three miles of headwater streams, next to state park!

08/07/2026

This month we want to talk about droughts! But wait - surely we can't still be in a drought? We got so much rain in July!

In short, North Carolina is still in a drought, caused by less precipitation than average over the past several months. The drought we experienced across North Carolina this year was among the worst on record. It can be hard to believe, but the drought actually began back in the fall of 2025. For the past 10 months drought conditions across the state have persisted. Even with regular rainfall it can take months for an area to emerge from severe drought conditions. At the end of July, in Western NC, large portions of Buncombe and Madison counties were finally out any of drought designation. According to data from the NC Drought Management Advisory Council, at the end of July, streamflows in the French Broad River basin remained below normal, and according to data released on August 4th, the Tuckasegee River was still showing some lower streamflows.

There are different types of drought designations; the most common one we think of is the meteorological drought, which is based on the amount of precipitation received in an area. Another is the agricultural drought, which shows up after a meteorological drought and is characterized by a lack of soil moisture to meet crop needs. Finally, the hydrological drought refers to lower than average surface and subsurface water. These impacts can be the most difficult to recover from when rainfall has been low for an extended period of time. The good news is that the consistent rainfall in July has made significant impacts to reduce drought conditions statewide.

If you want to learn more about the drought, its impacts, and how scientists classify droughts check out the North Carolina Drought Management Advisory Council at www.ncdrought.org. You can even be nerds like us and sign up for their weekly updates!

Maps created and shared by the NC Drought Management Advisory Council

07/02/2026

Eastern whip-poor-will (Antrostomus vociferus) is well known for its haunting name-sayer call common on summer nights here in western North Carolina. This superbly camouflaged, nocturnal insectivore is one of a group of birds referred to as “Nightjars” or “Goatsuckers,” which also includes nighthawks and the chuck-wills-widow.
Eastern whip-poor-wills are closely tied to the lunar cycle with peak calling and activity around the full moon. Nightjars have been on the decline for many years, but thanks to organizations like the Nightjar Survey Network, researchers are keeping up with the current status. Interested in adopting a survey route? Visit nightjars.org at https://www.nightjars.org/

Images (all used via iNaturalist Creative Commons open license)
1: eastern whip-poor-wills often sit totally still during the day, like this one at the forest floor
2: perched in a tree
3: eggs on the leaf litter, a typical nesting site

-poor-will

06/12/2026

Our Community Planner, Brad Spiegel, recently sat down with the Exploration Local Podcast as part of his role with Friends and Neighbors of Swannanoa (FANS) about their work to explore the possibilities of a greenway in Swannanoa and how our firm is helping achieve this vision. Take a listen!

NEW EPISODE: The Swannanoa Greenway: More Than a Trail | Bradley Spiegel & Carol Groben (Link in Bio)

When most people hear “greenway,” they think of a trail.

But what if it could also help a community become more resilient?

After Hurricane Helene, the conversation around the proposed Swannanoa Greenway took on new meaning. In this episode, I sit down with Bradley Spiegel and Carol Grobin to explore how a greenway could support flood mitigation, safer connections between neighborhoods, and the long-term future of Swannanoa.

This one is about much more than a trail.

🎙️ Link in bio, or listen on your favorite podcast platform.

Equinox
Great Trails NC
Connect Buncombe
RiverLink
Equinox
MADE X MTNS

06/03/2026

Where does the water from your downspouts go?

During the rainfall event that has a 50% chance of occurring in any given year, a 100-square-foot of rooftop in Asheville will generate approximately 225 gallons of stormwater runoff. Directing this runoff to a vegetated area, such as a garden bed, instead of across your yard or straight offsite, helps water soak into the ground, which can reduce erosion, recharge groundwater, and decrease the amount of water entering stormwater systems.

Adding a small bed of rock at the end of a downspout can help slow the flow before it spreads into your yard or garden. Replacing a downspout with a rain chain can slow water and direct it to a catchment or planted area. You can also bury underdrains to guide water to areas where it can be safely absorbed. Another option is to connect downspouts to a rain barrel, rain tank or underground cistern allowing you to collect and reuse water for irrigation.

These simple strategies support three key benefits: they slow water to minimize erosion, filter runoff before it leaves your property, and reduce the total volume of water entering storm drains. This means more water stays on your land and if you are a city or suburban dweller puts less strain on our public infrastructure. As you evaluate your own stormwater systems, always make sure water is directed away from your home’s structure and foundation!

Images
1: downspout releasing onto rock
2: garden where water is directed to from downspout in image 1
3: rain chain with rock and planting below
4: rain barrel with overflow to rock and garden
5: downspout into connected rain barrels
6: aboveground cistern
(all images by Equinox or permitted for use with Adobe Stock license)

05/26/2026

We are very excited to share this critical work that our Community Planner, Bradley Spiegel, will be supporting over the next two-years with the Town of Canton, Haywood Waterways Association, Inc., Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy, and Haywood Advancement Foundation!

He'll be convening the necessary stakeholders and guide a thoughtful planning process that integrates flood resilience, outdoor recreation, economic development, and quality of life that sets Canton up for sustainable future.

See this recent article from the Mountaineer on the project:

A new grant-funded project manager will help lead Canton’s growth and development over the next two years.

05/15/2026

Lisa Raleigh the Executive Director of RiverLink did an excellent job sharing the importance of riparian zones, the state of our rivers after TS Helene, and protecting the French Broad River. Give it a listen.

Rivers, Floods, and a Human Reckoning | Lisa Raleigh, PhD | TEDxAsheville