Public Radio for the Piedmont and High Country
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

US National Whitewater Center Needs County Permit To Reopen

The upper pool at the U.S. National Whitewater Center in Charlotte. Credit: Howard Morland for Wikimedia public domain usage http://bit.ly/2mtwaH3

Whitewater sports are on hold at the U.S. National Whitewater Center in Charlotte. The center will need a county permit to reopen the facility where a visitor got a deadly infection last summer.

The center applied Feb. 23 for the annual operating permit from the Mecklenburg County health department, with plans to resume water activities on March 4th.

The county began requiring the permit after 18-year-old Lauren Seitz of Westerville, Ohio, died of a rare brain infection caused by a single-celled amoeba. Seitz visited the center in June of 2016.   

The amoeba is widespread in warm, open waters. Infections are rare but almost always fatal.

The county is reviewing the center's application and will inspect the facility before it issues a permit. 

The permit can be suspended if the center doesn't maintain water-quality or safety standards.

Neal Charnoff joined 88.5 WFDD as Morning Edition host in 2014. Raised in the Catskill region of upstate New York, he graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1983. Armed with a liberal arts degree, Neal was fully equipped to be a waiter. So he prolonged his arrested development bouncing around New York and L.A. until discovering that people enjoyed listening to his voice on the radio. After a few years doing overnight shifts at a local rock station, Neal spent most of his career at Vermont Public Radio. He began as host of a nightly jazz program, where he was proud to interview many of his idols, including Dave Brubeck and Sonny Rollins. Neal graduated to the news department, where he was the local host for NPR's All Things Considered for 14 years. In addition to news interviews and features, he originated and produced the Weekly Conversation On The Arts, as well as VPR Backstage, which profiled theater productions around the state. He contributed several stories to NPR, including coverage of a devastating ice storm. Neal now sees the value of that liberal arts degree, and approaches life with the knowledge that all subjects and all art forms are connected to each other. Neal and his wife Judy are enjoying exploring North Carolina and points south. They would both be happy to never experience a Vermont winter again.

Support quality journalism, like the story above,
with your gift right now.

Donate