In a decade, tubing has become incredibly popular on the French Broad.

One local tubing company will put 2,500 people or more in the river on a busy weekend day.

And with heavy use, the trash problem has worsened, along with "unsavory actions" by users.

Clearly, everybody loves the river these days.

But is it being loved a little too much?

I had someone ask me last week about the French Broad River and who's responsible for law enforcement there.

"I was on the river this past weekend, and I was amazed at how many people were hammered," he said. "There were also a lot of people just throwing their empty beer cans and cigarette butts in the water."

Over Memorial Day weekend, I drove past the river and saw a flotilla of tubers drifting downstream, enjoying a perfect summer day.

More:Answer Man: Is the French Broad one of the world's oldest rivers?

While once the French Broad was heavily polluted, mostly by industrial users but also by straight-piping homeowners, now it has rebounded in cleanliness and become quite an attraction for kayakers, canoeists and the tubers.

But unfortunately, with human usage comes littering, and sometimes bad behavior.

So, to answer the reader's question, the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission is primarily responsible for law enforcement on the French Broad, as it is a waterway.

Capt. Andrew Helton supervises the 12 westernmost counties for the WRC, including Buncombe County. The WRC has 22 enforcement officers for those 12 counties, including two for Buncombe, so enforcement is always a matter of manpower and resources.

He noted that the commission also regulates other rivers and our local lakes, where motorized watercraft and thousands of users create a strong need for enforcement. Impaired drivers on lakes can quickly create life-threatening problems.

More: Answer Man: Is the French Broad safe for swimming?

The WRC oversees law enforcement on the Green River in Henderson and Polk counties, a waterway that also gets a lot of tubers — and has an alcohol ban in place. It's also much narrower river than the French Broad, so officers can conduct enforcement from the banks.

The French Broad's length and width make enforcement more difficult, but Helton is well aware that usage of the river has skyrocketed in recent years and behavior has sometimes gotten out of hand.

"This past Memorial Day weekend — holy cow," Helton said. "On Craven Street, they had people lined up a mile on each side (to tube). Sandy Bottoms in Bent Creek was the same way. Say 10 years ago on Memorial Day weekend, you might've seen a kayak and a couple of canoes. Now you'll see a thousand tubers, paddleboards and kayaks out there."

Alcohol is allowed on the French Broad River, which starts in Transylvania County, then meanders through Henderson, Buncombe and Madison before entering Tennessee. The popular part for tubers, mostly in southern and central Buncombe, is a rocky, mostly tame river, but it's also not stocked with trash cans every few hundred yards like the city's downtown.

More:Tubing this weekend? First, see how clean the river water is

"The environment is there for people to get really impaired, and they have nowhere to put their trash," Helton said. "There's numerous bars where people can pull up on the French Broad and get served."

2,500 tubers on a busy day

Helton is not exaggerating about the number of river users.

"On a really good weekend, on a Saturday, between both locations, we'll have have 2,500-2,800 people a day," said Heath White, co-owner of Zen Tubing with his wife, Jennifer Ditzler.

On a rainy weekend like this one, though, that number could drop to 150 a day or less.

Understandably, White gets very passionate about river usage and the litter and behavior issues. Established in 2012, Zen Tubing has become a major player on the river, and it's in the company's interest to keep the river experience a clean and fun one.

"We ask people not to bring glass, we ask people to be responsible," White said, adding that they provide mesh trash bags on request. "We have recycling and composting at both of our takeouts, and we have it in our speech. We do all these things."

But, people being people ...

"The truth about this is that these are adults that are going down this river," White said "In order to police adults, you can’t do that. I can go up to you and ask you if you can float down the French Broad River, drink a few beers and behave yourself and not act the fool."

They'll get the exact same answer from every person: sure. But once on the river, some people do drink too much or act the fool or carelessly litter.

White doesn't like it, and he says his company emphasizes with tubers that this is their river, their resource, and they need to be respectful of it. Probably 99 percent of the users are responsible, but some do cause problems, he allows.

And wherever people go, they leave trash behind. White half-joked that you could hold a large anti-littering conference in a convention center, and the cleanup crew would still have to pick up a bunch of trash afterward.

"Wherever you have humans, you’re going to have trash," White said.

Talk of an alcohol ban?

But with this heavier usage, the trash problem has gotten worse.

"While we greatly support river recreation, we have noticed a lot of additional trash associated with tubing on the river as well as some very unsavory actions by tubers on the river," said Hartwell Carson, French Broad riverkeeper with the Asheville environmental nonprofit MountainTrue. "There is talk of an alcohol ban on the river, which would be very unfortunate, but without key tubing companies stepping up and taking action for their clients, that might be the direction we are heading."

As far as that alcohol ban, I really don't see that happening here in Beer City.

I asked Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer about the river issues, and she correctly pointed out, "there are already laws that address public drunkenness and littering," and that enforcement falls primarily to the Wildlife Resources Commission.

I also mentioned to her that the state has limited manpower for enforcement on the river.

"All governments are forced to prioritize dollars around their regulatory and enforcement functions," Manheimer said. "I’m sure the state is weighing whether to fund policing inner-tubers in Buncombe County versus policing motorized watercraft on the coast."

Well, here it's more like they have to prioritize enforcement on our mountains lakes, which include Lakes James, Santeetlah, Chatuge, Glenville, Hiwassee and Fontana.

Helton says an alcohol ban would first be up to the city of Asheville to pursue, but he doubts that will happen, partly because we are, after all, Beer City.

So, it's a matter of enforcement, and that, well ...

"'Nightmare' is a good word for it," Helton said. "Say, you're trying to get someone off a tube and they resist — you’re definitely not going to be able to Tase them in the water."

The WRC would have to be on either kayaks or tubes themselves to apprehend flagrant drunks, and then you have a problem of how to get them to shore and transport them to a jail facility. The logistics are, well, the aforementioned nightmare.

"Now that's it's getting more pressure on it, especially on holiday weekends, we probably will be working some details," Helton said. "But really, about one of the only ways you work it is to be on a kayak or be undercover on tubes. Then getting to that person and getting them to the bank, it's a law enforcement nightmare."

Maybe just behave yourself?

So, what's the solution?

Obviously, this is a multifaceted problem, but I will say this: People, stop littering! Whether you're in the river or on a local roadway, don't just chuck your trash out the window or out the boat or tube.

It's just lazy and stupid and disrespectful, and it's an epidemic here in the mountains. One of life's basic tenets is this: Clean up after yourself. It really is disheartening how much trash we dump on Mother Earth, even in our most beautiful places.

Secondly, let's dial back the beer drinking. Hey, I enjoy a beer here and there, and often there and here, but you can have a few on the river without getting "hammered."

If major drunks acting the fool don't dial it back, that talk of an alcohol ban will gain momentum. Then everyone's fun gets the kibosh.

This is the opinion of John Boyle. Contact him at 828-232-5847 or jboyle@citizentimes.com.