What's your dam story?
Fighting the Blue Ridge Project
Margaret Mead said it perfectly: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed individuals can change the world. In fact, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
This is how we began, with people coming together to protect the New River in the face of a proposal to build two hydroelectric dams. Deemed The Blue Ridge Project, these dams were a proposed two-dam pumped storage and hydro-electric project on the upper reaches of the New River in Grayson County, VA and Ashe and Alleghany Counties in NC. The river, and the way of life along it, would have been changed forever. More than 42,000 acres would have been lost. Homes gone. Lives altered in ever lasting ways.
The years-long fight by the New River’s advocates resulted in permanent protection for the New, with 26.5 miles ultimately designated a National Wild and Scenic River, signed into law by President Gerald R Ford on September 11, 1976. His remarks can be found HERE
Now, we celebrate the victory each year at our Saved by a Salamander Day at the Old Store in Grassy Creek, NC.
We would love to hear your stories. How the Blue Ridge Project affected you and yours, how you were involved, and what are your lessons learned. Will you share them with us? Please fill out this FORM
and tell us your dam story.
President Gerald R. Ford signs into law 26.5 miles of the New River in North Carolina to be designated as part of the National Wild and Scenic River System. September 11, 1976