This article about the WNC Sierra Club - and Chair Judy Mattox - recently appeared in Carolina Spark Magazine, a bi-yearly women's publication circulated throughout the Carolinas.
Sierra Club Chair Judy Mattox Fights for WNC Nature
By Meg Hale Brunton
Since moving to Asheville in 2004, Judy Mattox has been on a mission to protect the mountains of Western North Carolina. “Asheville is just ‘take-your-heart,’” she says. A lover of hiking and gardening, Mattox decided to increase her knowledge of the natural world and how to care for it by joining the local chapter of the Sierra Club in 2007. In 2010, she was voted WNC Sierra Club chair. “I do the little piece that I can do, although sometimes, it’s not that little.”
Mattox explains that the Sierra Club has a multitude of goals for WNC, centering around protecting natural resources, fighting the effects of climate change, and educating the public on how they can get involved. She goes on to say that a large portion of their work revolves around local politics. “Our main bottom line is to affect elections, to affect good environmental candidates to safeguard the state,” Mattox says, stating that the Sierra Club endorses the environmentally-minded candidates across the entire NC ticket, and makes sure the voters are informed on who those candidates are. In the last election, the club handed out over 40,000 endorsement cards to voters. “We have the ear of a lot of people. They’re turning to us, going, ‘Who do we vote for?’”
The WNC Sierra Club has tackled a wide variety of environmentally-related issues. In 2020, they helped to shut down the Duke Energy coal-fueled power plant at Lake Julian. Along with partner Southern Environmental Law, they fought to establish zoning laws and ordinances for steep slope developments to prevent runoff into the river, and to protect farmland from being bought out by big developers. They also helped to pass dark sky ordinances to reduce light pollution and protect the migrating birds, as well as noise ordinances to ban crypto-mining (which she says can create jet engine level noise) in WNC. Currently, they are championing the cause Plastic-Free WNC to outlaw single-use plastics. On the first Wednesday of every month, the club holds a public program covering a range of topics from Reducing Your Carbon Footprint to Birding and Wildflowers. “There’s never any lack of things to be involved with,” Mattox says of the club’s many good works. “I haven’t slept well in fourteen years.”
A recent WNC Sierra Club accomplishment that Mattox is particularly proud of is joining with high school students across Buncombe County to petition the county to approve a goal to have 100% renewable energy by 2042. In December 2017, based on the students’ testimonies, the county changed their vote and passed the resolution. “Kids are powerful,” Mattox remarks. She goes on to say that the WNC Sierra Club’s award-winning Kids Adventure Club starts early in educating children to appreciate the natural world around them. The club takes young people on hikes and trips to the NC Arboretum, and hosts kids’ programs on birds, trees and snakes. “You gotta teach kids to love nature. They’re the best reason of all to get involved.”
When Hurricane Helene hit WNC last year, the WNC Sierra Club was needed even more. They partnered with MountainTrue, RiverLink, and Asheville GreenWorks, to repair the local ecosystem with efforts like live-staking the eroded stream beds, and giving away free trees to plant. They also helped educate the public about what effects the storm actually had on the trees and forests. Mattox comments that the people who live in Asheville feel that it is their duty to protect its natural resources, and that it has one of the largest number of environmental groups in the country. “Pretty much everywhere I go, everybody I meet wants to protect our mountains, wants clean air and clean water,” she says, commenting on how rewarding it has been to see their club’s meeting attendance grow in the past few years. “We have 1.1 million acres of forest surrounding us, which is why a lot of us are here; it’s beautiful.”
In 2024, Mattox and the club’s political chair Ken Brame were awarded the Environmental Champion of the Year by the WNC Rotary Club. She also received an award in 2020 for the Adventure Club program. Mattox says that her favorite aspect of her work as club chair is that she gets to bring all of these different groups together to talk about the best options for the environment, and that she hopes her own charm, humor and directness serve her role well. “It’s really fun when things are successful,” Mattox says. “All of this takes forever, so you just keep trying, keep trying.”