The real estate branch of Duke Power - Crescent Resources - is a company with the disquieting power to have national law reversed to favor its private business investments. As the company that owns the Needmore Tract in Swain and Macon counties, Crescent’s presence is something for locals to be aware of.

In nearby Burke County, where the company is developing Lake James, Crescent Resources has been granted a variance to federal laws protecting bald eagle nesting areas and is being allowed to destroy the only known nesting habitat in Western North Carolina. The public, it seems, wants the eagles protected. By law, the eagles are protected. But federal law and public opinion are being overridden for the profit of a corporation, suggesting, perhaps, that the only national symbol is monetary. How U.S. Fish and Wildlife determined that it was their duty to help Duke stockholders more than it is to protect the national bird remains unclear.

The bald eagle was listed as endangered in 1967 after the population declined, in part from habitat destruction and nest disturbance like that involved in the construction at Lake James. By 1995, thanks to efforts to reduce these threats, the population increased to such an extent the species was reclassified to threatened. However, the decision of Fish and Wildlife on Crescent’s behalf undermines this effective legislation. Before nesting eagles were located at Lake James, a pair had not been reported in Western North Carolina since the 1950s. Eagles are known for deserting their nests if disturbed, and the two at Lake James have in the past abandoned their eaglet because developers crossed over the boundaries of the recommended 1,500-foot buffer around their tree. Now there will be no buffer. There will not even be a tree.

To mitigate for displacing the eagles, Crescent agreed to give up six small areas around the lake that might attract eagles. However, there is no guarantee that these rare birds will move as easily to another lot as do the buyers of Crescent’s $275,000 house sites.

What is certain is that Crescent’s actions are an indicator of the damage the corporation could potentially do in this area. Fish and Wildlife failed to properly notify the people of Burke County of the comment period, and Crescent’s permit request would not have been publicized at all had it not been for the last-minute work of the Southern Appalachian Biodiversity Project. On short notice, huge numbers of citizens spoke out against the variance, but they were overlooked.

In addition to receiving this unjustified special treatment, Crescent’s development in Burke County is objectionable because it is being built near the cleanest lake on the Catawba River despite opposition of groups that collected nearly 5,000 names on an anti-development petition and the resolutions of 20 local governments asking for waterfront buffer zones. Again, this is an example of the large company ignoring local input.

As shores like those of Lake James become more developed, people who always had access to the water but do not live in the upscale subdivisions are now being confronted with chain link fences and told they can no longer use paths to the lakes.

Crescent’s holdings here - 4,600 acres of riverside land in Swain and Macon counties - provide river access that should not be closed to the mountain people who have used the land for generations, as Lake James has been. The campsites along the riverside dirt road are always full of hunters, fisherman, swimmers, bicyclers and boaters. Some of the land is still used by farmers, and about 40 families with long-time connections to Needmore hold leases.

The Needmore Tract is an area with many resources. Most importantly, it is largely undeveloped. The path of the 300-foot wide Little Tennessee River allows a boater to travel for 12 miles without seeing a house or highway bridge.

It is also healthy. The Tennessee Valley Authority’s annual Index of Biotic Integrity study of the river consistently rates it as good to excellent, rare for a large Southeastern river, and the Little Tennessee downstream of Franklin is the only major river in the Blue Ridge that still houses all of it’s original fauna. Large parts of the riverbanks in Needmore are montane alluvial forest, a type of forest very scarce in the Southern Appalachians. The surrounding 37 miles of tributary streams are important to the river’s health, and the 27 miles of Little Tennessee River and its surrounding land provide habitat for five endangered species of fish, four mussels, a flowering plant, a crayfish, an amphibian and a butterfly. One important species that feeds in the area is the bald eagle.

Duke Power turned over valuable land in the Needmore Tract to Crescent quietly and unexpectedly over the Christmas holidays in 1999. Since then, the company has set a two-year time period to make a decision about the land’s fate and will not reveal its decision until that time is up.

The boards of commissioners in both counties have passed resolutions supporting the preservation of Needmore, and there are no legal obstacles. What remains to be seen is whether the company will choose to donate or sell for conservation or whether it will again go against the wishes of the local government and its constituents.

Duke has transferred thousands of acres of land not being used for making electricity to Crescent. In general, it seems dubious for a power company with the ability to condemn land to have a connection to the real estate business. All of Crescent’s properties haven’t been seized, but still, landowners may be pressured to sell when a power company contacts them simply because they hope to receive market value before eminent domain is declared. Through the various methods of acquisition, Crescent has come to control 200,000 acres in the Carolinas. Land that Crescent is selling on Lake Norman was purchased by a company Duke later bought out, Western Carolina Power Company. The $275,000 lots were originally purchased by this company in 1918 for as little as $1 an acre. Though individuals may sometimes feel it is their duty to give up land for power production, corporations are not so altruistic.
The Needmore Tract became Duke’s property when Nantahala Power and Light was taken over.
Nantahala Power and Light was a small company with public relations interests in not antagonizing Macon and Swain counties. Duke Energy was once also a local company, but now, as a global corporation that has turned the land over to a real estate business, it has little reason to be concerned with local sentiment.

Though Crescent has made decisions before that weren’t based solely on profit, such as donating and selling some of their lands on the Catawba for public use, controlling erosion on the Catawba-Wateree River and creating Duke Power State Park, the company cannot be relied on to maintain public access or to put the environment before profit. Residents should be wary of which of Crescent’s faces will be shown in Macon and Swain counties.

(Rose McLarney is a Warren Wilson College student from Franklin writing this summer for The Smoky Mountain News.)

 

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