APCo’s Gift Will Give for Years to Come

Smith Mountain Lake is one of the natural, man-made gems of Central Virginia that makes the region such a great place in which to live and work.
The lake dates back to the 1920s when Appalachian Power Co. began buying up land in the Smith Mountain gorge on the Roanoke River for a hydroelectric dam. Construction of the dam actually began in 1960 and was completed in 1963, with the lake filling by March 1966. Covering more than 20,000 acres skirting Bedford, Pittsylvania and Franklin counties and complete with a state park, it’s turned into one of the premier recreational destinations in the state.
But it’s also a working hydroelectric project, providing power to millions of APCo customers, and the power company’s parent, American Electric Power, still owns several thousand acres of land surrounding the lake.
Monday, AEP and APCo officials along with Gov. Timothy M. Kaine announced they would be placing nearly 5,000 acres of prime lake property into the state’s conservation easement program. The tract is adjacent to the Smith Mountain Wildlife Area, near the dam itself; close to 4,000 acres are in Pittsylvania County, with the rest in Bedford. The final value of the easement donation has yet to be tallied, but with lake property still hot in demand, it’s easily in the millions of dollars.
The conservation easement will be held by the Virginia Outdoors Foundation (http://www.virginiaoutdoorsfoundation.org), a quasi-governmental agency established by the General Assembly in 1966 with the mission of protecting the commonwealth’s open spaces.
Those open spaces were just beginning to vanish in the late 1960s, as development in Northern Virginia was starting to kick into high gear, and the paving of the state has only accelerated since.
That’s why, when he took office in January 2006, Gov. Kaine set a goal of placing 400,000 acres of Virginia land into conservation easements by the time he leaves office in 2010. With the APCo donation and placement of about 6,200 acres near Carvins Cove Natural Reserve into the program later Monday by the Roanoke City Council, the governor’s more than half way to his goal.
The cynics out there will say APCo will be benefiting immensely tax-wise and from a PR-standpoint. Sure, there’s no denying that at all.
But more importantly, the citizens of the commonwealth will benefit as a huge chunk of pristine Virginia woodlands will be preserved for the enjoyment of generations to come.
The land won’t be cordoned off, for no one to enjoy.
Quite the opposite, APCo’s agreement with the state allows for all sorts of public access: camping, hunting, fishing, hiking … you name it. That’s the beauty of the program: preserving land in its natural state for the enjoyment of all Virginians.
The state’s conservation easement program is not open just to big companies with large landholdings; it’s open to any and all landowners in Virginia. The foundation’s Web site has detailed information about how to initiate the easement process.
As so much of Virginia’s natural beauty gets cut down, paved over and built on, what’s left becomes that much more precious. That’s why APCo’s donation Monday is all the more welcome.