Watershed Event

By Ron Fitzwater
The communities that make their homes along the New River watershed are as diverse and unique as the

historic waterway that made their existence possible.

Community and commerce have grown along the watershed from the first time one of our human ancestors discovered the river and began to encamp along its banks.

Though a long way from those first primitive encampments the New River watershed of the 21st Century is a thriving natural, historic, cultural and economic asset with limitless possibilities.

Leading the watershed into the future is New River Community Partners, a grassroots non-profit organization established to oversee and coordinate the New River's American Heritage Rivers Initiative Work Plan.
2008 marks the partners' first ten years in existence and as the list of projects and programs they help to facilitate continues to grow, another ten years is not hard to imagine.

"New River Community Partners started in 1998 after the president [Clinton] came to Ashe County and designated the New River as the first American Heritage River," said NRCP Executive Director Ken McFadyen.

The designation came via Executive Order 13061 which lists its three top objectives to be natural resource and environmental preservation, economic revitalization and historic and cultural preservation.
"The AHR initiative is a White House program to assist communities in using a river as the catalyst to assist them with environmental cleanup and protection, natural resource protection and also help them preserve protect and promote their unique sense of identity and character," McFadyen said.

The guide used to implement the many programs overseen by the partners is the New River Work Plan; following the designation of the 14 American Heritage Rivers, a list that includes the Hudson, the Potomac, the Rio Grande and the Mississippi, the plan was developed after more than seventy meetings and a total of 1,750 hours of community in-kind work.

"Hundreds of communities along the New River watershed participated in creating the work plan in 1998-99 and that was the reason for the launch of the NRCP-to produce the plan, and to promote the AHR initiative," McFadyen said.

According to McFadyen, approximately 1,500 agencies, organizations and individuals have participated in the development of the work plan for the 21 watershed counties.

Structure of the partners is vital to success and one of the key positions is that of the River Navigator.
"One of the factors in the initiative is that the federal government assigns a federal administrator to serve as the River Navigator. Basically the role of the navigator is cut through the red tape of community organizations, figuring out what federal programs can assist their projects and so forth and to create a direct relationship between federal agencies and community grassroots organizations," McFadyen said. The current River Navigator is West Virginia native Ben Borda. A 24-year veteran of the Army Corps of Engineers as their River Navigator, Botha has an extensive background and understanding of the cultures, economies and environments of the watershed.

"The organization initially started out with a lot of federal grant support from the EPA and other organizations to get the word out and do the ground work to launch the initiative. Then the organization began to focus on singular major projects to sustain the organization and sustain the staff for multi-year projects," McFadyen said.

The program is a partnership between the Duke Endowment, the North Wilkesboro District United Methodist Church, MDC, Inc., a local advisory board and NRCP.

Last April the PRC concluded the program after successfully Training more than 100 job seekers, assisting in the creation of 50 new businesses, facilitating the establishment of an Individual Development Account program in Ashe and Alleghany counties and funding the leadership development programs in Ashe and Allegheny counties training more than 150 community leaders. Additional benefits of the PRC program included providing the initial funding for the creation of the Northwest North Carolina Advanced Materials Cluster Initiative and helping the town of Sparta participate in the Rural Center's STEP program netting the town $200,000 for project implementation.

Moving into the future NRCP is seeking to find ways to maintain the delicate balance between environmental preservation and economic development.

"It is import to recognize that traditional economic development has been about jobs, private investment and industry. With NAFTA, the internet and the global economy such as it is, traditional economic development doesn't work anymore. So we need to look at all of our assets as economic tools. Folks from Charlotte, Winston-Salem and Raleigh come here to canoe and enjoy the scenery and the greenery so it is logical for us to think of those ecological assets as also economic assets. We have to think of new economy and the river sells itself and brings money-it brings people here to visit and to build second homes. All of that is economic development-everything we have is an asset and it is how we take care of it or don't take care of it that will decide how much of an asset it becomes," McFadyen said.

"It is incumbent for the partners to communicate the new economy and to recognize the river as an economic asset which means that we are to take care of it," McFadyen said.

Shifting the mindset of old economic development to new ways will not be easy and NRCP does need the help and support of the communities they serve to be successful.

NRCP welcomes anyone interested in helping to build the future of the watershed to become involved.
"It is the network of people who plug themselves into the community where that really makes things tick. We are here to assist them while making sure that people realize that the New River is an American Heritage River and what that means. It is not only a matter of federal assistance but it is a distinction; out of 126 rivers in the United States for President Clinton to designate, he chose the New River as the first one."

For more information on NRCP call McFadyen at (336) 372-8118.