WORDS | SARAH GOLIBART GORMAN PHOTOS | Courtesy of Smoke in Chimneys
It’s hot. That late August kind of hot that bakes the grass brown and brings on an early fall. Trees drop their leaves to conserve water, eliminating the canopy usually shading the trout ponds. Everything is thirsty. You can almost hear taproots digging deep into the shrinking aquifer. The spring’s water pressure is dropping, meaning thousands of fish jumping at the head of the system are low on oxygen.
In fact, a number of counties in Southwest Virginia have issued a drought warning. Panic sets in among trout and humans alike. The cicada’s whine reaches a fever pitch as Ty Walker decides what he must do: move the fish.
Ty’s down-the-mountain neighbor, Jimbo, agreed to Ty fixing up a few of his neglected hatchery ponds to relocate the fish. Moving 8,000 market-size trout is no easy task. It’s a race against time to net each fish, pile them in barrels, and then dump them into a water tank for the trip down the mountain. It turned out the water pressure was low at Jimbo’s place too, so Ty outfitted a 15-foot section of PVC to get the water flow they needed. For a week, the fish were fine. Then Ty got a call.
Jimbo’s voice filtered through the phone: “Ty, we’ve got a problem. The fish are dead.” “How many?” asked Ty. Jimbo paused and then huffed out, “All of them.”
Ty arrived at Jimbo’s to find a remnant of a Biblical plague, thousands of trout dead and baking on the dry pond bottom. The stink began to set in and the flies caught on. Ty looked out at the burial ground that was supposed to be his family’s winter crop, worth around $20,000, and felt ready to throw in the towel on his four-year trout hatchery restoration project.
It turned out that section of pipe, six inches around and holding around 350 pounds of water, inexplicably moved. At first, Ty blamed himself. “Should I have anchored it? Probably. Did I really think to anchor something that is so heavy and massive? No, I didn’t. Was that a user error ultimately? Yeah, it was.” Building the plane while he’s flying it is Ty’s style. He taught himself how to run his hatchery with an early 20th-century manual on trout raising he found on eBay.
It turns out that Ty is a pretty effective self-tutor. Before this tragedy, Smoke in Chimneys, a sustainable, family-run, spring fed trout hatchery, was riding high off press coverage in major regional publications, podcast interviews and three Emmy awards for a short-form film featuring Ty called “The Trout Farmer.” His trout is served in Michelin-starred restaurants like The Dabney and Albi in D.C. and Blue Hill in New York, as well as in restaurants across Virginia.
In his Filston shirt (yes, he did a brand partnership with the outdoor gear company), camo jacket, blonde mullet and matching handlebar mustache framed by a few gold hoops in each ear, Ty explains that raising trout wasn’t on his radar until he got a call from a friend about a 1930’s research facility in Southwestern VA that was for sale.
With hip-high grass hiding the ponds, Ty wasn’t sold until he met Jerry, who worked at the original hatchery. The two swam through overgrown grass until Jerry located a valve. Upon cranking it open, a geyser of fresh, cold mountain water erupted, a divine moment for Ty. The trout farmer was born.
When that same spring slowed this summer, a flood of community support swept in. Initially, Ty and his wife Shannon debated whether to keep the issue private or involve their community. They ultimately chose the latter path, with Shannon taking to Instagram to post photos and video of the dry pond and dead fish captioned: “I don’t want to forget how fragile our system and product is. I don’t ever want to take for granted the favor and grace we have had. If our customers and those who support us can stick with us through this, to the other side, I don’t want to forget what we have come through.”
Realizing that spring-raised trout are not a guarantee, but instead a resource that needs protecting and care, is a game changer. It helps us, the consumers, better appreciate the value of what we eat and the meticulous effort invested in producing it. When you know the people who work long days to deliver nutritious and delicious food to your plate, how could you not want to help?
The response to the Walkers’ vulnerability was humbling. While the fish at Jimbo’s pond were a lost cause, the Walkers still had thousands of fish to process in their hatchery ponds. Over the next few days, the hatchery staff gave a crash course on fish processing to friends, neighbors, and 16 teenage girls with Eastern Appalachian Teen Challenge, a residential program for girls exhibiting at-risk behaviors like self-harm, addiction, and eating disorders. Teen Challenge Executive Director Harley Cox wrapped up a day of cleaning fish by explaining the healing power of helping others. Ty, moved by Cox’s words, recalled, “It was so empowering. Our weakness provided them an opportunity to step up and show up.”
The flood of support did not stop there. Other neighbors, whose 1800s farmhouse burned to the ground a few months prior, showed up with bags of ice and pizza. Ty was flabbergasted: “I’m just like, dude, this person lost their house. My loss is nothing compared to that. You just feel so affected by other people’s generosity.”
In addition to on-the-ground help, more of the Walkers’ neighbors set up a GiveSendGo with the goal of raising $10,000. Ty thought they’d be lucky to receive $1,000. Donors raised nearly $11,000 for the Walker family.
The restaurant industry also poured in during the Walkers’ time of need. After Ty texted over 40 restaurants to ask if they could take frozen fish, big fish or no fish, Ty recalls Chef Ryan Zale of Local Chop and Grill House in Harrisonburg saying, “Listen, man, send whatever you need to send up here. We’ll make it work.” Ryan Derieux, Primland Resort’s executive chef, even popped in to lend a hand processing the very fish he serves.
The wave of support rippled through Roanoke with Gladheart Wine & Brews and bloom Restaurant & Wine Bar hosting fundraisers. GladHeart’s Philip Hatter first learned of Smoke in Chimneys when dining on whole trout at Roanoke’s Stock Cafe. Hatter shared that the historical aspect of the hatchery was interesting, but what really drew him in was Ty’s personality, even though they had never met in person. “When you put yourself out there with such honesty, that’s infectious. I think it was that honesty that kind of broke us and made us want to help.”
For Nate Sloan, owner and executive chef of bloom, catering to the whims of nature is not new. In prioritizing local, seasonal food, Sloan realized, “Nature has its own way of operating and we all just follow suit.” Part of going with nature’s flow is supporting the farmers who are weathering the storms, or lack thereof.
After serving grilled trout and trout cake fritters to hungry bloom patrons at the fundraiser, Ty looked out at the staff who worked double time that night, staffing a regular dinner service plus the cookout service, and thought, “I can’t accept money from them. But if the table was turned and I had offered my help, my time and my energy, and the person didn’t receive that?”
Accepting help, allowing others to step in during our time of need, is what makes a healthy community. Even if it means overextending ourselves for a moment, we can find purpose and meaning in helping others.
So what happened to the water at Smoke in Chimneys? Why did a seemingly endless supply begin to dwindle? If you cut a cross-section of Southwest Virginia’s karstic landscape, you’d see a network of aquifers, caves, and veins of water bubbling up from reservoirs deep in the earth.
“Everything around here [in Appalachia] has been squeezed and broken and folded and uplifted. And because of that, the rocks are cracked open. Those cracks allow water to easily move vertically up from deep in the earth,” explained James Madison University’s Dr. Steve Baedke, a geology professor specializing in geochemistry, who has worked for decades on groundwater in karstic settings.
Long before the U.S. Department of the Interior built the 1930’s trout hatchery, rain did the work of dissolving limestone to create a vast deposit of water beneath the mountain. A few years back, a researcher at Hollins University donned a scuba suit and entered the aquifer. “He said it was like an ocean under the mountain,” shared Ty.
Now Ty sees how that seemingly unending supply can vary from 4,000 gallons a minute at its peak to 2,000 a minute or less during a late summer drought. The variation of water pressure can be the difference between thousands of beautiful, sparkling trout on plates across the state and empty freezers, smokers and stainless steel gutting tables free of scale and entrail.
According to NASA, extreme droughts and floods are a part of a new normal for Ty and his farming peers: “Global warming is going to cause more intense droughts and wet periods, which affects people, the economy, and agriculture around the world. Monitoring hydrological extremes is important for preparing for future events, mitigating their impacts, and adapting.”
Next summer, you may see fewer fish at Smoke in Chimneys to account for low water pressure and oxygen levels. Rather than stress the fish, Ty plans to scale back.
After opening up about their struggle, Ty had to remind himself to accept the help. “Am I gonna receive the help humbly? Or am I gonna be prideful and be like, ‘No, I’m good’ when I’m not good?” He found strength in his community when he allowed himself to be vulnerable, to let go of control, to allow others to give.
When was the last time you lent a hand? Pitched in with your money, time or effort, even when you were bone tired or facing a low bank balance? Just like the Walkers, countless farmers, growers and makers pour their hearts into providing food for their families and communities. They’re the unsung heroes of our dinner tables. And in moments like these, we have a chance to be heroes too. Go to the farmers market, the roadside vegetable stand, the small grass-fed beef shop, the spring-fed trout farm. Be the hero your farmer needs you to be.
This article first appeared in our 2023 Winter publication, Local Heroes.
Sarah Golibart Gorman is a writer and educator from Harrisonburg, Virginia with one foot sunk in the marsh mud of Virginia’s Eastern Shore and the other planted in her home garden in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Catch her adventures on Instagram @friendlycityfoodie
