Morning mist clung to the hillsides like wood smoke.

A heron pulled itself up from the river’s edge and ambled downstream. Higher up, a pilliated woodpecker crossed from bank to bank, moving from West Virginia into Virginia. Higher still, eagles patrolled their patch of woods and water.

Far below, on the river bottom, beneath the bass and the shiners, hellbenders hunkered down among rock ledges, waiting out the day.

It’s no wonder so many people say that if you’re going to float only one section of the New River, this should be the one.

This summer, the National Park Service issued a report that declared 19.3 miles of the New River between the Giles County community Glen Lyn and the river’s confluence with Indian Creek, just south of West Virginia’s Bluestone Lake, fit the criteria of a Wild and Scenic River. The federal designation would keep that section of the New River free flowing and protect it from development that might mar its natural and scenic character.

But the Park Service recommends against the designation. There’s no apparent threat to the river’s condition now, the agency concluded. Besides, there hasn’t been much support for the idea among elected officials or other folks in the region.

That changed somewhat on Nov. 4, when the Giles County Board of Supervisors voted to send a letter of support to the Park Service, but the area’s representatives in Richmond haven’t taken a public stand on the study, which began in 1992. A spokesman for Gov. Tim Kaine said Kaine will probably wait until the public comment period ends on Nov. 6 before he takes a position. Rep. Rick Boucher, who represents the area in Congress, hasn’t taken a position, either.

A 26-mile-long section of the New River has been Wild and Scenic since 1976. The designated section begins where Dog Creek runs into the South Fork of the New in Ashe County, North Carolina, and ends at the Virginia state line. Virginia has no federally designated Wild and Scenic rivers.

Citizens’ groups, including the Concerned Citizens of Giles County and the National Committee for the New River, have urged their members to support the designation. Britt Stoudenmire, who along with his wife Leigh owns The New River Outdoor Company, has been involved in the process since at least 2004, when he canoed the section with representatives of the Park Service.

“You can’t hear anything, you can’t see anything except river and mountains,” Stoudenmire said. “The Wild and Scenic River designation is going to protect that section of river forever. Your grandkids’ grandkids’ grandkids – it’ll be the same way that it is now a thousand years from now.”

But the designation is more than environmental protection measure, Stoudenmire said. It can also bring an economic boost to the area.

People come from all over to fish the New River, Stoudenmire said, but not to paddle the river. Running the river is an industry farther downstream, but not around here. The Wild and Scenic designation could change that.
“It instantly markets this area on a national scale,” Stoudenmire said.

Businesses like his would obviously benefit, Stoudenmire said, but so would hotels, bed and breakfasts, grocery stores, gas stations, restaurants, all the businesses people patronize when they’re far from home.

In West Virginia, the land along the river is managed by the state’s Department of Natural Resources. It’s a wildlife management area with campgrounds and picnic areas along the bank. In Virginia, there hasn’t even been persistent enforcement of state laws.

“Historically, it was such poor access that it was hard for enforcement people to get in,” said John Copeland, a fisheries biologist with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. “There tended to be a lot more illegal activities in that section.”

Those activities ranged from burning tires to violations of game laws that Copeland suspects may be responsible for a the relatively small number of 14- to 20-inch bass in that section of the river. Bass of that size are supposed to be released, but their relative rareness between Glen Lyn and the state line suggests that someone may be catching and eating rather than catching and releasing.

Road improvements along the river have made it easier for law enforcement officials to patrol the river, but it’s also made it easier for people to set up mud bogs for four-wheel-drives. There’s no active management plan for the land along the river, which is owned by the Army Corps of Engineers. Even the town park in Glen Lynn is Army Corps land.

“They could back the dam up a little farther if they wanted to. That’s why they own that land,” said George Santucci, executive director of the National Committee for the New River. “That would stop the free flowing nature of the river. There are other projects that could threaten the river that the federal government could weigh in on if the Wild and Scenic designation was in place.”

The study began when a power line route was proposed across the river in Giles County. While the study was going on, no such project could be undertaken. When this process ends, so does that protection.

“If this thing doesn’t get done, if it doesn’t pass, then the study is over and it’s free rein,” Stoudenmire said. “The only way to guarantee for future generations that the section will remain intact, and wild and scenic as it is is to get that designation passed.”

The period for public comment on the Park Service study ends at midnight Friday, Nov. 6. But the process doesn’t end there. The secretary of the interior will review the study and the public comment before making a recommendation to Congress, which will ultimately pass judgment on the designation. Hearings could come as early as next spring.

Read the study online.

Want to let your Voice be heard on this matter? You can publicly comment here.

Tim Thornton is an award-winning environmental journalist and freelance writer living in Eastern Montgomery County.