Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 24, 1990 TAG: 9004240224
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Sound familiar? It should.
Three years ago, the River Foundation - the same non-profit group of Roanoke business leaders that originated the proposed Explore Park and won federal funding for the Roanoke River Parkway - also championed a "greenway" of protected land along the river.
It held public meetings. It brought in consultants. In the end, the foundation produced a 71-page booklet that recommended creating a 25-mile-long series of parks and nature preserves along the river - perhaps the first comprehensive set of suggestions on ways to protect the river.
And then?
The report was promptly ignored.
But lately there's been a flurry of governmental interest in the Roanoke River - and some of the same subjects the River Foundation dealt with in 1987.
The Fifth Planning District, which encompasses local governments from Covington to Roanoke, has been studying land use along the river. Now Eddy comes forward with his greenway suggestion.
Perhaps River Foundation project director Bern Ewert was ahead of his time - or, just as likely, misunderstood.
The foundation's greenway plan grew out of Ewert's original proposal to build a 25-mile federal parkway from Dixie Caverns to Smith Mountain Lake.
When the National Park Service, not to mention citizens in western Roanoke County, frowned on that, the suggestion was scaled back to a 10-mile federal parkway from Vinton to Hardy Ford that's been partly funded and is now in the planning stage.
But the River Foundation didn't give up its original interest in the river from headwaters to lake.
The result was the greenway plan, in which the River Foundation identified 20 "conservation action areas" along the river where natural habitats ought to be protected and 10 "recreation action areas" where picnic grounds, for instance, could be developed.
The River Foundation distributed copies of its report to valley libraries, but little else happened - and the foundation turned its attention to raising money to build the proposed Explore living-history state park.
Ironically, as Ewert has concentrated on planning Explore's re-created frontier town and North American zoo, and acquiring riverside land for the proposed state park, his enthusiasm for protecting the river has increased.
He cheerfully confesses that when he was Roanoke's city manager, he ignored the river. But now he sounds like a veteran environmentalist as he talks about the heron that makes it way up the river through Explore land every day.
"That heron probably roams five miles in a day, maybe 10 miles," he says. "We see it come up the river from Smith Mountain Lake. I've seen herons all the way up to Wasena Park" in the heart of the city.
But unregulated development along the river could destroy the heron's habitat - and that of other, less glamorous wildlife, Ewert says.
He points out how the well-manicured riverside lawns of the River's Edge sports complex in South Roanoke may appeal to city-dwellers but drives away wildlife. "If the river ends up looking like the sports complex, that heron could wind up losing its habitat and dying," Ewert says. "One of the reasons we're losing species is the places animals live are being cut off."
So now he's urging valley governments to take environmental concerns into account when they make land-use decisions - just as he says Explore is doing in planning its $185 million tourist attraction by leaving most of the 1,700-acre site untouched.
In any case, Ewert will be watching with more than usual interest today to see what county supervisors do about Eddy's greenway proposal - or whether it ends up on the same shelf the River Foundation's greenway report did.
by CNB