Tommy Denton

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Gradually, and with uneven levels of commitment among local jurisdictions, enhancement of the ecological, social, cultural and economic value of the Roanoke River has begun to make modest progress.

For the better part of a century, the river performed the practical purposes common to an impatient human population: a convenient waste dump.

I mentioned naturalist and public servant Rupert Cutler in my previous column as one of the visionary advocates of transforming the Roanoke River and its environs into a value-added contributor to the sustainability and vitality of a community blessed with such a precious natural resource.

Yet many devoted, equally visionary people have worked for years against the inertia of indifference to enhance that waterway and its adjacent banks as the spine for greenways and trail networks throughout this part of the state for hiking and biking to encourage human interaction with the natural order.

Any brief listing invites justifiable criticism for having omitted many worthy champions, but Liz Belcher, the Roanoke Valley greenways coordinator, and Barbara Duerk, former member of the Roanoke Planning Commission, have been conspicuous among the devotees of uniting the natural with the built environment.

Cutler possesses a breadth of environmental knowledge, experience at the federal, regional and local levels of government and his current position as a member of the Western Virginia Water Authority. He's been an administrator and a planner. He's a birder, fisher, hiker and canoeist. He loves nature and its restorative properties for the human mind, heart and soul. He's also a pragmatist.

Referring to a proposal by the nationally acclaimed landscape architect John Nolen, submitted in 1907 at the request of the Civic Betterment Club of Roanoke, Cutler has posed the challenge for a comprehensive development of the Roanoke River.

Ideally, that plan would incorporate the full length of the river, from its headwaters in Montgomery County to its entry to Smith Mountain Lake. Alas, not all jurisdictions along its course have embraced even remedial proposals for greenways, much less a collaborative initiative for a comprehensive development plan in the common interest of all Western Virginia.

So Cutler begins with the city of Roanoke, urging the council to create a "Future of the Roanoke River" study commission to flesh out the city's official Vision 2001-2020 by adding a special river plan similar to those adopted for housing, public art, urban forestry and neighborhoods.

As Cutler told a gathering of the Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce, "Such a study of the Roanoke River and its environs, similar to those made of Mill Mountain Park, Carvins Cove Natural Reserve and our many neighborhoods, is needed to provide a complete answer to the question: 'What is the recreational and development potential of the river and immediately adjoining lands?'''

Cutler said that, more than a mere inventory of those assets, he would expect a consequential recommendation by such a study to include a complementary development plan for residential and commercial activity "along the river above the flood zone."

Park professionals refer to the "proximate principle" to explain the attraction -- and thus the commensurate increase in revenue-generating real estate values -- of land adjacent to carefully executed river plans, especially those enhanced by greenways or similar development.

San Antonio, Chattanooga, Richmond, Greenville, S.C., and other cities of various sizes have enriched their environs by developing their riverine assets.

"We have taken our river for granted," Cutler said, "while other communities have taken advantage of theirs, to their economic benefit."

The long-planned, gradually advancing greenway accompanying the flood-control project under construction by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers along the Roanoke River in time could become the spine of a regional network of connected trail systems.

Many miles of the meandering course flow in beautiful, stunning contrast to the urban settings through which the river runs. OK, the industrial stretch along the banks from the Peters Creek Road bridge near the Salem VA hospital to the bend approaching Wasena Park isn't likely to grace the cover of Field & Stream magazine. It's not a perfect world.

But with a little more collective imagination, a surge in community exhortation and a good deal more political determination, the river that runs through us could make our part of that world so much richer and inspiring.

Denton's column appears in the Sunday and Tuesday editions of The Roanoke Times.