Preserving Bull Hole: Rivers flow for all of us

THE SALISBURY POST

You can’t own a river.

You can own its banks, and you can have rights to use its water, but the river itself — any river in this country — is a sovereign thing, owned collectively by the American people.

That’s one thing to bear in mind as the South Yadkin Power Co. and the Cooleemee Historical Association face off on opposite shores over the future of the historic Bull Hole site on the South Yadkin River.

The company has a federal license to produce hydroelectric power at the old Burlington Mill’s dam, diverting a portion of the river’s flow around the dam to power its turbines. The Bull Hole site below the dam, as fate would have it, is also where the Cooleemee Historical Association wants to establish a public park where people can enjoy picnics and family outings, fish, go for a stroll or otherwise take advantage of the river’s recreational opportunities. It has generated enthusiastic public support, including a $250,000 grant from the state.

The essential ingredient for both these enterprises is water, and the historical association fears the power company may divert so much of it around the dam, the Bull Hole will be left high and dry. Unless you’re a sun-bathing lizard, a pile of dry rocks doesn’t hold quite the same allure as a curtain of cascading water.

Although the flow over the dam has been severely diminished recently, the power company’s manager says that has resulted from low rainfall, not the company’s operations. He has denied the association’s assertion that the company’s diversion eventually will reduce the river’s flow to a trickle and contends that other criticisms against the company, including allegations of a fish kill, have been misrepresented.

As long as the company abides by its licensing guidelines, it has every right to use the water for power generation. Just as we need a healthy river for drinking water, crop irrigation and a sustainable environment, we need electricity. And hydroelectric power production is preferable to the coal-fired power plants that contribute at least half of the pollutants that make up the state’s serious ozone problem. Anything that helps relieve that problem benefits the public.

But when a power company official says that the company’s licensing terms are “nobody’s business” and another company statement describes freely-flowing rivers as “a largely wasted natural resource,” it suggests a too-narrow view of the public’s stake in this enterprise, and the role that rivers play in our history and environmental heritage.

With the right to use the river comes the requirement that the company be a good steward of this precious resource — that it remain mindful of the environmental and recreational roles the river served long before it was harnessed and dammed. While the association and the company may view this issue from opposite shores, that’s the common ground where they should meet.