Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 26, 1994 TAG: 9404260144
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Montgomery County, with 50 percent of the Roanoke River's headwaters, is a key player in the seven-jurisdiction effort to protect water quality and make riverside regulations more uniform.
With the 5-1 vote, the supervisors took the next step in a seven-year process. But the move came amid echoes of last year's divisive debate over the conservation and development plan, better know as the "open-space" amendment to the county's 1990 Comprehensive Plan.
After two years of work by the Planning Commission and panels of county residents, the Board of Supervisors rejected the amendment in December as too far-reaching.
Supervisor Joe Stewart of Elliston, an outspoken foe of the open-space plan, repeated some of his same ideas in questioning of Steve Via, a New River Planning District Commission official who outlined the corridor plan.
"I'll tell you what I'd do with this whole thing; I'd kick it out the door," said Stewart, a cattle farmer, livestock auctioneer and major landowner. "There's not one good thing" in the plan.
Stewart drew parallels between the Roanoke River Corridor Study and the failed effort three years ago to gain scenic river status for the Little River, a theme he and others used last fall against the open-space plan. "It looks to me [like] just an underhanded way to do it," he said.
Scenic river and open-space plan foes regarded both as an intrusion on private property rights that would open up their land to the public.
"I've got land along the river. I don't want the public to use it. That's not why I bought it," Stewart said.
But other supervisors supported the effort and noted it would help Montgomery protect the north and south forks of the Roanoke River as water sources, should it ever need to tap them. Local water authorities now use the New River and private wells for drinking water.
"This is not like the scenic river approach, this is like life insurance," Supervisor Joe Gorman said. "This is primarily going to promote water quality."
Some of the corridor study options, which include buffer areas between farming and the river, stepped-up floodplain regulations and "setbacks" for certain types of development, were mentioned in the county's conservation and development plan.
County planners incorporated portions of an earlier version of the Roanoke River Corridor Study while drafting the open-space plan.
by CNB