To the Editor:

Mike Bamford recently wrote to Smoky Mountain News (“Paddling lobby gets too much coverage,” Oct. 6) to attack American Whitewater, releases on the West Fork of the Tuckasegee, and outdoor recreation in general. As is typical for Mr. Bamford, his points are misleading and thinly veiled in their intent.

Mr. Bamford is associated with a large private landowner along the Wild and Scenic Upper Chattooga River that wants to forbid fishing and boating on the river. His opposition to public river access has apparently spread over the ridge to the Tuckasegee.

Western North Carolinians have a long history of sharing rivers with our neighbors. We can’t all be lucky enough to own land along a river, but thankfully the river belongs to everyone to fish, boat, and swim in.

American Whitewater is not a lobby group. We are a national non-profit organization that works on river conservation, restoration, and recreation — and we are based right here in Sylva. We work to make sure that private and corporate citizens alike share our region’s rivers with their neighbors. A large group of local and state stakeholders, including Duke Power, agreed that restoring just a few of the many natural paddling opportunities to the West Fork made good sense. We also agreed to build a trail to High Falls on Duke’s property so that hikers can enjoy the scenery. Currently there is no public access to High Falls and the West Fork’s upper reaches: not for hiking, not for boating, not for angling.

Mr. Bamford claims that the river is dangerous and therefore, he insinuates, Duke Power has an obligation to keep it dry all the time. Should we also dewater the Nantahala and Tuck Gorge, close roads, trails, and cliffs? Should we fence people out of public lands and off public waters — especially reservoirs where people drown? Of course this is absurd. Outdoor recreation is a good thing for society: it makes us healthier, happier, and perhaps a bit more connected to nature. That all outdoor recreation carries some risk is bittersweet, but it is no reason to forbid those activities. The few paddlers that have descended the West Fork had a great time, and found the river to be plenty safe.

Regarding the economics, Bamford is trying to manipulate you yet again. FERC ran the numbers and figured that the seven West Fork releases cost a total of $37,710 per year, while the project generates $2,876,700 annually. So about 1.3 percent of revenue would be forgone to restore public recreation and the natural functions of pulse flows to the river. If 250 paddlers show up for each release, which is reasonable, this is about 21 bucks per paddler of foregone profit for Duke — not the $1,000 that Bamford claims.

In the end though, before the river should be thought of as dollars and cents, it should be thought of as a river that supports recreation and its ecosystem. It is a great whitewater river for the public to experience by boat, and it is great for power generation, and we are all sharing the river.

There is no conspiracy here, no paddler on the FERC committee, no impending public safety disaster, and no kayaking-induced power bill hikes on the way. This is about a good corporate citizen sharing a river that has been too long off limits to the public. This is about Western North Carolinians sharing their public rivers with each other. We can either have vibrant rivers brimming with fish and recreation, or we can have locked gates and dry riverbeds. We prefer the first option, Bamford prefers the second, and we are quite happy to disagree with him.

Mark Singleton

Executive Director

American Whitewater

Sylva