Saving the New

Southerners, always close to their land, have already seen much of its scenic beauty and natural resources destroyed by increasing industrialization and, in some cases, simple carelessness. But now North Carolinians have won a battle to keep yet another piece of their environment from being despoiled. For more than a decade the people of the state's Ashe and Alleghany counties have been contesting the efforts of the giant American Electric Power Co. to build a pair of dams that would turn the New River's spectacular upper reaches into a great, muddy lake. Their fight ended in victory when the President signed into law a bill taking the New into a national scenic river system. The measure does more than preserve the river and deal a precedent-setting setback to the power industry: it also safeguards a centuries-old way of life.

National Treasure. The battle over the New River began 14 years ago when A.E.P.'s subsidiary, Appalachian Power Co., obtained a license from the Federal Power Commission to build two dams at Independence and Galax, Va., for a "pumped-storage" project in which water run through turbines in the upper dam would be retained in the reservoir formed by the lower dam and then pumped back. The objective of the so-called Blue Ridge Project was to increase Appalachian's already enormous generating capacity by a significant 10%, providing more peak-load power for customers in Ohio.

The dams would also have destroyed a national treasure--geologists believe that the river was formed at least 100 million years ago and is perhaps older than the Nile. Certainly the New was already flowing when the movement of the continental plates thrust up the Appalachian Mountains, which are no youngsters as mountains go. While most Eastern rivers flow south and east and empty into the Atlantic, the New meanders north, cuts through the mountains and empties into the Ohio and Mississippi drainages. For centuries, in fact, it served as a highway for early Americans seeking to travel from East to West. Stone axes, arrowheads and other artifacts found along its banks have been dated back at least 8,000 years before the birth of Christ.

The river was not all that would have been destroyed by the dams. Creation of the huge lake would have inundated some 50,000 acres, most of which was prime agricultural land, and left another 50,000 acres all but useless. The lake's waters would have submerged more than 900 homes, trailers and cabins, drowned 600 farms, five post offices, 15 churches and twelve cemeteries. It would also have driven nearly 3,000 mountain people, most of them independent farmers, from lands settled by their ancestors before the Revolution.

A few mountaineers figured that it was futile to oppose the power company and sold their lands, often receiving a fraction of what they were worth. But the rest decided to fight. "This is my home," said Sidney Sturgill, 51, a muscular World War II veteran who is the seventh in his family line to farm the rolling acreage just outside the tiny community of Piney Creek, N.C. "My ancestors got title to this land for fighting in the Battle of Kings Mountain. My people have been in this valley for more than 200 years, and my go-back-four-times greatgrandfather's buried right here."

Sturgill had plenty of allies. A grassroots movement by the farmers, shopkeepers and craftsmen of the two counties enlisted the support of the influential Izaak Walton League of America and won the backing of North Carolina officials right up to the state house. The general assembly voted unanimously to incorporate the 26-mile stretch of the New River in Ashe and Alleghany counties into the state's scenic river system and turn it into a park. Secretary of the Interior Thomas Kleppe agreed to take the same section into the eight-year-old National Wild and Scenic Rivers System, which also includes streams like Georgia's spectacular Chattooga, the setting for James Dickey's novel Deliverance. North Carolina's Sam Ervin lent the campaign his Old Testament eloquence. "Let us not dam the New River," he said. "I use the word dam in the sense of ruining the New River from now until the last notes of Gabriel's horn tremble into silence, because we cannot use the New River after it has been dammed."

Formidable Alliance. Earlier this summer it seemed as if even this formidable alliance might be inadequate. When the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the dam builders' FPC license should prevail over any action by Kleppe, friends of the New River won Senate and House approval of a bill to annul the license. Their effort was frustrated when the House Rules Committee responded to power-company pressure by requiring a two-thirds vote on any license-lifting legislation.

But persistence finally paid off late this summer. Impressed by the fervor of the New's defenders, the House voted 311 to 73 to uphold Kleppe's decision. The Senate concurred.

The defeat of the dam builders helps assure the continued existence of one of the few free-flowing or undammed rivers left in the East and preserves the almost unlimited recreational opportunities it provides for campers and canoers. It also helps to preserve a way of life that is well worth saving. North Carolina's mountaineers know that they could make more money by abandoning their farms and moving to the cities, but most prefer to stay where they are. "I don't need a new job," says Sturgill, gesturing toward his well-tended corn and tobacco fields. "My job here started 200 years ago."

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