From river a city runs

Anglers will slip today into the South River to conclude an annual rite in Waynesboro, the Fly Fishing Festival, which serves as the prelude to another to follow at week’s end, the city’s Riverfest. So it may be plainly said of Waynesboro, for those otherwise unaware, somehow, that a river runs through it, which as a practical reality carries none of the poetry of Norman Maclean’s elegant novella. This town, like him, is haunted by waters.

But things don’t merge into one here. The South River is a frayed thread, posing periodic menace when remnants of hurricanes rumble from the coasts and spill ill-timed raindrops, spawning the city’s latest great flood. Otherwise, that shallow, winding band of opportunity is mostly ignored, spare the scientists monitoring nutrients and the mercury that lingers there, watchers from the Invista plant checking discharges, men and boys casting flies and teenagers seeking cool comfort on hot summer days.

In other places, along the Mississippi and the Ohio, for instance, towns spring from rivers, and from the rivers, life. No river in these United States poses greater hazard than does the Mighty Mississippi, yet some 100 towns are set along its 2,320 miles, from the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul to New Orleans, all of them drawing strength from those waters. The river takes when it roars over its banks but more frequently it gives, serving as an economic and cultural center in dozens of small towns just like this one.

Yet nothing in Waynesboro is more emblematic of all that the town could become, but is not, than the South River. While retail booms in the West End, on the city’s opposite flank, where the river flows, the pulse is a flat line.

That it might all be different has not escaped notice. A multitude of ideas have been floated for spurring growth along the South, among the most salient is the Riverfront Commons project produced several years ago by John McNair and Associates for Waynesboro Downtown Development Inc. It would establish a mixed-use district along the South while preserving greenspace on the river’s banks. The plan — like so many others, such as a city greenway – remains trapped on paper.

Be prepared to dodge the jabbing of fingers in the air pointing to others for blame when asking why. Among the targets: property owners near the river who refuse to sell when developers seek to set projects in motion or test their feasibility, a thicket of government red tape, elected officials who persist in squabbling over trifles and the river itself, which persists in flooding once every seven years or so and making development considerations more complex.

Here is what we suggest: The City Council should establish a river district development committee, with either City Manager Mike Hamp or Assistant City Manager Jim Shaw, the former city planner, serving as a liaison. This committee would be tasked with identifying development opportunities and obstacles, working with city staff to pursue the former and clear the latter. Outside of government, the world works on objectives and deadlines. The council should set these with the concrete idea of turning the riverfront into a true economic hub.

As Maclean explains in his classic work, from an omnipotent hand, nature evolves and rivers form. But what extends from rivers and rises from the soil reaching beyond them is molded by human hands, and when those hands are idle, nothing comes, or worse, decay. Rivers are extraordinary things, and Waynesboro has been given one. It is a gift that so far has been placed under a basket. It is time for the city to lift the basket and let the river’s light shine.