Appalachian Power Co. has announced its intention to forever preserve the natural state of about 5,000 acres it owns on either side of the dam that holds back Smith Mountain Lake.

Under the terms of a conservation easement still being finalized, the land will be perpetually protected from intensive development and essentially donated to the public for continued recreational uses such as fishing, hunting, camping and hiking.

Gov. Tim Kaine joined Michael Morris, American Electric Power's chief executive officer and chairman, in announcing the easement Monday night in Roanoke.

The property essentially encompasses a tract that has been managed by the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries for the past four decades as the Smith Mountain Wildlife Area.

The bulk of the tract, to the southwest of the dam, lies in Pittsylvania County. The rest is in Bedford County.

The tract was briefly the single largest one to be placed under a conservation easement since Kaine took office and pledged to add 400,000 acres to the state's inventory of such land during his term.

The Smith Mountain site was superseded less than an hour after Kaine's news conference Monday night when Roanoke City Council voted to place a similar easement on 6,185 acres at the Carvins Cove Natural Reserve.

"Over 250,000 acres so far have been preserved," Kaine said. "That's in less than two and a half years in office, so we're on pace to hit 400,000."

Conservation easements become part of the title to a piece of property and transfer in perpetuity to future owners. The Smith Mountain easement will be held by the Virginia Outdoors Foundation -- a quasi-governmental agency that holds and supervises the majority of such easements in the state -- and the game and inland fisheries board.

Conservation easements typically strictly limit the development rights to a tract and require that it continue in its natural state, or in farming or timber operations, but don't otherwise limit ownership of property.

In return for preserving open spaces, landowners get Virginia income tax credits based on 40 percent of the fair market value of the property. If the landowner doesn't have a large tax obligation, the credits can be sold or given to a third party.

Morris said Monday that the value of the 5,000 acres by the dam "has not been calculated to a finality," and that he didn't have even a general idea of its value.

Kaine had a broad conception of its worth, however. "We say it's priceless," he said with a broad smile.

"It was never our intent to develop" the property, Morris said. "It was always our intent to make it available to the public."

He said the company "once considered other energy production facilities" for the site, "but those are no longer in our plans." He didn't specify what they were.

The company will reserve the right to upgrade transmission facilities around the dam, Morris said, "to make certain we can continue to utilize the facility, which is a very cost-effective source of energy and is renewable."

Morris and a host of other AEP executives are in Roanoke for the company's annual shareholders meeting, scheduled for today at the Hotel Roanoke. Although Columbus, Ohio, is the company's headquarters, executives have moved the annual meeting in some years to the hometowns of various company subsidiaries -- last staging it in Roanoke in 1983, said spokesman Todd Burns.

AEP is listed as the ninth-largest electric utility in the United States, based on its stock value of $17.9 billion, Yahoo Finance reports. The company earned $1.09 billion on revenue of $13.38 billion last year. Its Roanoke-based Appalachian subsidiary claims nearly 1 million customers in Southwest Virginia and parts of West Virginia and Tennessee, 2,497 employees and 17 generating plants.