AEP places about 5,000 SML acres in easement

Nearly 5,000 acres of Smith Mountain Lake land in Bedford and Pittsylvania counties is now permanently protected under a conservation easement.

Appalachian Power Company owns the scenic property and last April announced its intention to place it under an easement, which ensures development would not take place there. The Virginia Outdoors Foundation formally recorded the easement last month.

The land, containing mostly wooded area and more than 10 miles of shoreline, is part of the property acquired to build the Smith Mountain Hydroelectric Pumped Storage project in the 1950s.

The easement is the largest recorded so far this year by the Virginia Outdoors Foundation, according to a news release.

Approximately 4,022 of the acres are in Pittsylvania County — the remaining 973 acres are in Bedford County. The easement comprises the majority of Smith Mountain that sits along the east side of the lake and forms the ridge on both sides of the Smith Mountain Dam.

“The company’s donated easement at Smith Mountain is one of the largest we have received in years,” said Virginia Secretary of Natural Resources L. Preston Bryant Jr. in the release. “From now on, this property will remain as it always has been.”