TIPS FOR PACKING A Kayaker with

ties to WNC
HEALTHY LUNCH Health, C1 comes up short Sports, D1

ASHEVILLE

50 cents
CITIZEN-TIMES VOICE OF THE MOUNTAINS ● CITIZEN-TIMES.com
Tuesday
August 12, 2008

French Broad River at Man held

TOP PICKS

lowest recorded level

in Swain
TOP BLUE DEVIL: Mark
Barnes, Brevard’s new
football coach, hopes
to uphold the high
slayings
Ga. suspect in custody,
school’s strong
tradition in the sport.
Page D1

RUSSIA
HAS
hunt on for 2nd accused
UPPER By Jon Ostendorff Swain County
HAND: JOSTENDO@CITIZEN-TIMES.COM deputies found
President and Dale Neal the men dead
Bush may DNEAL@CITIZEN-TIMES.COM Friday at the
be talking BRYSON CITY — home they
tough, but there’s not Investigators have arrested a shared on John
much the U.S. can do Georgia man in the killings of Henderson
about Russia’s assault two Swain County men, one Drive. A third
Jason
of them a former sheriff’s son, man was shot
on Georgia. A news Johnson
authorities said Monday. and seriously
analysis: Page A2 A fugitive also sought in wounded.
the slayings was being hunted “It is a terrible tragedy for
CLINTON late Monday in woods around our county,” the sheriff said.
CAM- a fast-food restaurant east of Before the bodies of
PAIGN: Atlanta as law enforcement Wiggins and Compton were
Hillary agents in two states continued discovered, Swain County
Rodham to chase leads. authorities had reported only
Clinton’s Swain County Sheriff Curtis four killings since 1980, accord-
top cam- Cochran said Monday that ing to the North Carolina
Jason Christopher Johnson, 26, Uniform Crime Reports.
paign strategist advised Wiggins is a Swain County
of Decatur, Ga., was arrested
her to cast presidential Sunday on two counts of first- native and the son of former
rival Barack Obama as degree murder in the deaths of Sheriff Dave Wiggins, who
un-American. Page A2 33-year-old Jason Scott served in the mid-1970s. He
Wiggins and 34-year-old
DEATH PENALTY: Michael Heath Compton. Please see SWAIN on A6
Prosecutors said

Bear shot after boy

Monday they plan to
seek the death penalty
against a man charged

in the kidnapping and
fatal shooting of UNC
Chapel Hill student
body president Eve
Carson. Page B5
VIEW FROM THE TOP:
Sam Powers leads
Asheville’s efforts to
boost economic activi-
ty. Page D6.
Today’s forecast
Partly sunny
High 82, Low 59
WEATHER, D8
Index
BUSINESS D6-7
CLASSIFIED C6-10
CROSSWORD, PUZZLES C8-9
LIVING C1-5
LOTTERIES
Peter Perretti, of Asheville, wades in the middle of the French Broad River on Monday while fishing for small-
mouth bass near Long Shoals Road. Perretti said the drought has lowered area rivers to a level where trout
fishing is poor, so he decided to go for bass. Wading the French Broad now is easy, he added.
River’s water flow rate may worsen if drought continues
By Nanci Bompey
NBOMPEY@CITIZEN-TIMES.COM
ASHEVILLE — Stream flows
in the French Broad River
have reached their lowest
levels since record-keeping
began in 1895 and likely will
continue to drop as the
region’s drought drags on.
The river at Pearson
Bridge in Asheville was flow-
ing at a rate of 121 million gal-
lons a day on Sunday, accord-
ing to the U.S. Geological
Survey.
That rate falls well below
the median stream flow of 781
million gallons a day for this
time of year and below a pre-
vious low of 139 million gal-
lons a day measured in 2002.
“I’ve been working in river
programs for 27 years, and
I’ve never seen the river this
B2
JOHN COUTLAKIS/JCOUTLAKIS@CITIZEN-TIMES.COM
low,” said Bill Eaker, environ-
mental services manager for
the Land-of-Sky Regional
Council.
Eaker spoke Monday as he
surveyed the French Broad
near Carrier Park in getting
ready for the annual Mayors’
Cup Raft Race coming Sunday.
Ironically, the event
intended to highlight the
river’s cultural, economic and
recreational importance
could be in jeopardy because
water reaches only ankle-
and knee-deep in places,
Eaker said.
Around the region, com-
mercial rafting companies
have cut trips and water sys-
tems have issued conserva-
tion measures as a lack of rain
combined with groundwater
systems that never recovered
from last year’s drought have
caused low stream flows.
Monthly average stream
flows were at all-time record
lows during June and July at
more than half of the USGS
long-term stream flow gages
in WNC
Nearly all of region is list-
ed by the state as being in an
exceptional drought, the most
severe classification.
Asheville has received nearly
10 fewer inches of rain this
year than normal.
At this rate, it would take
about one and a half times
normal rainfall between now
and January to end the
drought, according to the
National Ocean and
Atmospheric Administration.
Please see RIVER on A6
attacked in Smokies
By Dale Neal
DNEAL@CITIZEN-TIMES.COM
GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS
NATIONAL PARK — Park rangers
shot and killed a black bear
believed to have attacked an
8 -year-old Florida boy
Monday on a popular trail in
the Great Smoky Mountains
National Park.
Evan Pala, of Boca Raton,
Fla., was playing along
LeConte Creek about 300
yards up Rainbow Falls Trail
about 7:30 p.m., park
spokesman Bob Miller said.
A 55-pound male black bear
attacked the boy twice before
the boy’s father drove the ani-
mal off with sticks and rocks.
Evan Pala suffered cuts,
scratches and puncture
wounds while his father had
minor injuries. The boy was
taken to Fort Sanders Sevier
Medical Center in Sevierville,
Tenn. His injuries were not
considered life threatening.
The boy’s father, John Pala,
drove to the same center for
treatment of his wounds.
Rangers went to the scene
and shot a bear they found
acting aggressively.
Park wildlife management
personnel said the bear likely
was a yearling. The animal
was taken to the University of
Tennessee for a necropsy to
establish that it is the bear
that attacked the child.
Rainbow Falls Trail is off
Cherokee Orchard Road just
south of Gatlinburg.
Encounters with potentially
dangerous bears have been on
the rise in Western North
Carolina, but attacks have been
rare. A 6-year-old girl was
killed in a bear attack in the
Cherokee National Forest on
the North Carolina-Tennessee
line in 2006. A woman also
was killed by a bear in the
Great Smoky Mountains
National Park in 2000.

Study: Half of overweight people may be heart-healthy

MOUNTAINS B1-2
MOVIES C2
NATION/WORLD A2-3
OBITUARIES B4 By Lindsey Tanner The first national estimate ferent lens” at weight and
OPINION A4-5 THE ASSOCIATED PRESS of its kind bolsters the argu- health risks, Sowers said. LOSING WEIGHT STILL PREFERABLE
SPORTS D1-5 CHICAGO — You can look ment that you can be hefty but In the study, about 51 per- It’s true that a family history can ple can have normal cholesterol if
YOUR NEWS B3
great in a swimsuit and still be still healthy, or at least healthi- cent of overweight adults, or count more than extra pounds for a the genetics are on their side.”
a heart attack waiting to hap- er than has been believed. roughly 36 million people healthy heart, said Dr. Sonia But exercise is still a good idea for
pen. And you can also be over- The results also show that nationwide, had mostly normal
weight and otherwise healthy. stereotypes about body size levels of blood pressure, cho- Humphrey, of Mission Bariatrics in the overweight with healthy choles-
A new study suggests that a can be misleading, and that lesterol, blood fats called Asheville. terol levels, she said.
surprising number of over- even “less voluptuous” people triglycerides and blood sugar. “Genetics play a huge role,” “You can make your good choles-
weight people — about half — can have risk factors common- Almost one-third of obese Humphrey said. “Some (obese) peo- terol even better,” she said.
A GANNETT NEWSPAPER | VOL. 139 | have normal blood pressure ly associated with obesity, said adults, or nearly 20 million
NO. 225 | 30 pages | © 2008
and cholesterol levels, while study author MaryFran people, also were in this
an equally startling number of Sowers, a University of healthy range, meaning that in the recommended-weight them are at risk for heart prob-
QUESTIONS ABOUT trim people suffer from some Michigan obesity researcher. none or only one of those range had unhealthy levels of lems.
CIRCULATION? of the ills associated with obe- “We’re really talking about measures was abnormal. at least two of these measures. Staff writer Dale Neal con-
Call (800) 672-2472 sity. taking a look with a very dif- Yet about a fourth of adults That means some 16 million of tributed to this report.

CMYK ??
A6 TUESDAY, AUGUST 12, 2008
RIVER: Water needs grow
Continued from A1
“I can’t predict the weath-
er, but if conditions persist,
it’s (stream levels) going to
stay low,” said Jerad Bales,
director of the N.C. Water
Sciences Center.
Quantity and quality
Low water levels can
bring a host of problems for
the French Broad, a river
seen by some as a symbol for
WNC.
“The river is probably the
one natural resource, other
than the mountains, that peo-
ple most closely identify
with,” Eaker said.
With less water, pollution
from industries and other
entities that discharge into
the water are at higher con-
centrations. Water tempera-
tures also have been increas-
ing while the levels have
been dropping.
“People don’t know too
much about how rivers
respond to drought,” Bales
said. “What is happening
now is everything that lives
there is being squeezed into a
smaller and smaller space …
the less water there is there is
less oxygen in the water, and
the fish are going to be
stressed because of that.”
The river was once a
major lifeline of the region,
serving as a source of water
for Native Americans and
later as a transportation cor-
ridor for farmers traveling
through the region.
Water quality in the
French Broad deteriorated
when it was used as a dump-
ing ground for raw sewage as
the population of WNC and
its industry grew, but cleaned
up after the passage of the
Clean Water Act in the 1970s.
Since then, the river has
become important for towns
in WNC.
All of Hendersonville’s
water comes from the Mills
River, and South Asheville is
served primarily by the city’s
intake on the confluence of
the two rivers.
Low water levels in the
Mills River forced
Hendersonville last week to
institute mandatory water
restrictions.
The river levels also are
hurting some in the tourism
industry. For the first time in
more than 25 years, the
Nantahala Outdoor Center
decided last week to stop
actively selling rafting trips
on the French Broad. It has
also cut back on trips on the
Chattooga River.
“It was just getting lower
and lower and lower … It was
just getting to the point
where it was obvious that the
river was handicapped,” said
NOC spokesman Charles
Conner. “It’s just not a river
trip we want to sell to these
people.”
Conner said the company
will definitely feel a sting
from the loss of trips on the
river as will French Broad
Rafting Expeditions, a small
company out of Marshall that
is now running inflatable
one-person duckies on the
river instead of the larger
rafts. The change translates
into fewer numbers of people
per trip.
“It will end up being a
tough summer,” said owner
Michael Hampton.
Making a point
If there is an upside to the
low water levels, some hope
it lies in focusing attention on
the need to plan for water use
as WNC continues to grow.
LOCAL NEWS
“It’s a bad time for recre-
ation and event planners, but
it’s a great time to drive home
the point that water
resources are limited, and
we’ve got to work together
because this is a regional
resource,” Eaker said.
French Broad riverkeeper
Hartwell Carson said local
governments need to start
talking about ways to plan for
increased water use and how
they can work together to
make sure water is evenly
distributed around the
region.
“If now is not the right
time to be looking at long-
term solutions, then I don’t
know what is,” Carson said.
“If the lowest levels of water
ever can’t raise people’s
awareness, then I don’t know
what will.”
Bales said more regulation
on withdrawing water would
help scientists better under-
stand what is going on in the
rivers and in turn help people
manage the rivers more
effectively.
“The river will recover,
but water resource managers
need to pay attention
because WNC is growing,
water demands are growing,”
Bales said. “We plan for cer-
tain worst-case conditions
and maybe although we plan
for the worst-case conditions
the conditions are worse than
we planned for.”
ASHEVILLE CITIZEN-TIMES ● CITIZEN-TIMES.COM
SWAIN: Suspect sought
Continued from A1 He did say a white Ford F250
SUSPECT AT LARGE
Authorities were
searching late
truck investigators had been Monday for 25-
owned Wiggins Oil.
Cochran said he didn’t looking for has been found. year-old Jeffery
Wiggins owned a similar
know if Compton was Czechonna Miles, of
employed, but he has family in vehicle, according to county Decatur, Ga. Anyone
tax records.
the Norfolk, Va., area, the with information
Both Wiggins and
sheriff said. should call the Swain County
Compton were single with no
Cochran would not com-
children, Cochran said. Sheriff’s Office at 488-2196 or the
ment on a motive in the
killings or say where and how Compton in 2004 was local police department.
Johnson was arrested. He also arrested for felony possession Authorities described Miles as 6
of methamphetamines, feet, 1 inch tall, weighing 187
would not say how the men
were killed. although the state later pounds and having close cut hair.
dropped the charge.
Officials also issued war-
rants charging Jeffery One of Wiggins’ uncles
said his family was relieved by community.
Czechonna Miles, 25, of
Decatur, with two counts of the arrest. “He was a great guy,” Biggs
Maurice Biggs said said. “Every time you see him,
first-degree murder.
Miles was spotted at a Wiggins was well-liked in the he was smiling.”
Wendy’s restaurant in
Decatur near Interstate 285,
launching the Monday night
search, said John Bankhead,
spokesman for the Georgia
Bureau of Investigation.
Two women also were in
custody, though Bankhead
said he could not identify
them or whether they had
been charged.
Cochran said late Monday
that he could not confirm those
additional suspects before talk-
ing with the district attorney.
CMYK 6A