When Matt Rosenthal opened the doors of a new fly-fishing shop in Waynesville last week, word spread quickly among the fishing community. All week, fishermen moseyed through the new Waynesville Fly Shop, sizing up the owner Matt Rosenthal as much as his wares.

Thanks to major environmental investments by Blue Ridge Paper Products in Canton, the last advisory against eating fish downstream of the mill was lifted this month — ending a 20-year effort to clean up the river following decades of pollution from chemicals historically dumped in the river by the mill.

Paddlers floated down the Chattooga River outside Cashiers last weekend for the first time in 30 years since the U.S. Forest Service first imposed a paddling ban on the upper stretch of the Wild and Scenic River.

The Sumter National Forest has fired back at American Whitewater, a paddling organization that is challenging a ban on paddling the upper Chattooga River.

The Chattooga is a federally designated Wild and Scenic River that tumbles off the Cashiers Plateau and into the Sumter National Forest of South Carolina.

A blistering fight over whether paddling should be allowed along the upper stretch of the Chattooga Wild and Scenic River has landed in court.

American Whitewater, the premier national paddling advocacy group whose headquarters are in Jackson County, filed a lawsuit two weeks ago challenging the ban on paddling as baseless and unfounded.