The Roanoke Times | File 2007

Sun sets over the mountains of Giles County and the New River. The float commemorating the 10th anniversary of the river's status as an American Heritage River will pass the Monroe County and Giles County line on June 19.

It was unbearably hot. Then it rained. It poured.

About 12,000 people waited through it all in a North Carolina pasture to see a man from Arkansas sign his name.

That was 10 years ago and President Bill Clinton was officially declaring the New River the nation's first American Heritage River.

On Friday, a float trip began to celebrate the New's decade with that designation.

Clinton, with Vice President Al Gore at his side, promoted the designation as a way to preserve the environment and culture along the river while promoting economic development.

"There has always been a way for us to preserve the environment and grow the economy," Clinton said that day. "We just have to be innovative."

Some people said that was pretty talk disguising another federal government intrusion into local affairs. Some members of Congress went to court to kill Clinton's American Heritage Rivers Initiative.

The courts eventually decided the program was OK. And a lot of people who live along the New River say they are glad the program survived.

"When we think of the federal government, we think of Big Brother and we think of regulations and programs and we think of the IRS and so forth," said Ken McFadyen, executive director of the New River Community Partners, based in Jackson, N.C.

The American Heritage River Initiative is the antithesis of all that. There are no regulations attached to the designation. There's no power to direct local decisions inherent in McFadyen's organization. New River Community Partners exists only to help communities in the 21 counties in the river's path in North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia work together, to help them connect with private and government funding and to help them cut through governmental red tape.

"That's really what this initiative is all about," McFadyen said.

The float trip, organized by Tangent Outfitters and New River Community Partners, started with a festival in North Carolina's New River State Park. There will be another big shindig Friday at Claytor Lake. The float will pass through Radford during this weekend's Radford Heritage Days. It will wind up with another celebration in Hinton, W.Va., the weekend after that. There will be passing-the-paddle ceremonies along the way along with lots of information about the river and what's going on along its banks.

The trip is a celebration, but it's more than that.

"Everybody's in their own microcosm," said Shawn Hash, owner of Tangent Outfitters, which is based in Pembroke. "North Carolina's in their microcosm. In this area, we're in a fragmented, bizarro microcosm. Giles is in it's own microcosm."

The trip is an attempt to use the New River as a ribbon to tie communities together.

"There are 21 counties in three states that belong to the same watershed," McFadyen said. "We all use the same water, so we need to take care of it."

When New River Community Partners was formed a decade ago, about 1,500 agencies, organizations and individuals identified more than 300 potential projects. They covered history, culture, environment, education, training, agriculture, transportation and economic revitalization. But it's all really about economic development, McFadyen said.

"Everything we do is economic development," he said.

Whether it's restoring an old building or building a new industrial access road, the Partners' aim is to bring jobs to the watershed. Jobs built on natural and historic resources can't be outsourced, McFadyen said. They can't be moved overseas.

McFadyen seems particularly proud of New River Community Partners' work with the Northwest Alliance Program for the Rural Carolinas. It included leadership development, an advanced materials center and a Web site for an arts and crafts cooperative. Funded by The Duke Endowment, the program involved the North Wilkesboro District of the United Methodist Church in North Carolina. The endowment works only with churches, hospitals and orphanages, McFadyen said.

"How often do you find a project where you're doing industrial development with local leadership development with the local chamber of commerce and arts and crafts all under one umbrella?" he asked. "And you're doing it with the church."

About 60 of the projects on that original list have been completed. The Whitt-Riverbend Park near Pearisburg is one of them. The Blueway Project -- a National Geographic map that shows canoeists and rafters and float fishermen where they can camp and get equipment and assistance along the New River -- is another.