Matt Gentry | The Roanoke Times

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KINGS CREEK ACCESS, NEW RIVER STATE PARK, N.C. -- Two canoes push off from this small patch of state park into the New River. There's an outfitter across the county road and another on the river's far bank. A campground stretches along the west bank. Vacation houses perch on the east bank.

This is the Wild and Scenic section of the New River.

"People think because it's designated Wild and Scenic, it's wild and scenic," said Mike Lambert, superintendent of North Carolina's New River State Park. "But it's not."

The designation is meant to preserve and protect free-flowing rivers and free-flowing sections of rivers "and their immediate environments ... for the benefit and enjoyment of present and future generations." About one-quarter of 1 percent of the nation's rivers have that designation.

"The New River has always been a special place," Lambert said. "We'd like for future generations to be able to come and see the New River as it is now."

Twenty-six of the New River's 320 miles have the designation because of a fight over a dam. American Electric Power wanted to build a dam in Grayson County that would have flooded about 40,000 acres of Southwest Virginia and northwestern North Carolina. The fight killed the dam proposal and gave birth to the Wild and Scenic designation, a state park and the National Committee for the New River.

The committee is a North Carolina-based advocacy group that works for preservation all along the river.

Its success has been spotty.

Generally, North Carolina's developments are smaller than the hundreds-of-homes developments along West Virginia's New River Gorge. But in North Carolina, many vacation homes don't look down on the river -- they sit right beside it, even on the Wild and Scenic section.

In some places, a 50-foot-wide conservation easement preserves vegetation along the water's edge. In others, landowners mow the riverbank as if it were a suburban lawn. That's good for the view from the house to the river, but it's bad for water quality and bank erosion. And it doesn't offer the kind of experience some eco-tourists expect.

Lambert manages a park that includes more than 2,300 acres in 17 noncontiguous parcels. He's constantly trying to expand the park and connect those parcels.

"Unfortunately, our biggest challenge is that the developers have far more money than the state does," Santucci said.

So the committee raises money to supplement the state's funds. And it helps people put land in conservation easements -- agreements that limit development on a piece of land in return for tax breaks.

That still leaves long stretches of private land open to development along the river's Wild and Scenic section. And people are taking advantage of that. Half the private land along the Wild and Scenic section has already been developed.

"It's like having a national park," said George Santucci, executive director of the National Committee for the New River. "It draws people in. That's good and bad. They come. They bring tourist dollars. The problem is they stay and they build second homes.

"Of course, where do they want to build them? They want to build them in the most beautiful places, and the river is one of those."

Nearly half of Ashe County, N.C.'s real estate tax bills are mailed to someone living outside the county.

"So it's a double-edged sword," Santucci said. But the good outweighs the bad, in his opinion. "I'd rather have the designation than not have the designation."

Some people fear the designation because they think it restricts private property rights. But neither the Wild and Scenic nor the American Heritage River designation affects private property. Wild and Scenic brings more scrutiny to projects that use federal money, but one thing that comes with the American Heritage designation is federal help with economic development.

"Everybody acknowledges the value of this thing," Santucci said. "It's a Wild and Scenic River. It's an American Heritage River. But it's not always treated that way. I don't know where that disconnect is happening."