specifically prohibits the use of eminent domain to take

specifically prohibits the use of eminent domain to take property from current landowners.

In response to questions, Mr. Heerwaki said nine yean of experience dealing with other riven indicates the designation doc» not increase recreational use of the river.

No one involved in the program “has noticed any usage of the riven above what would have occurred naturally,” Mr. Heerwald said. “We have made it a policy not to go out and say ‘come canoe our scenic riven’.”

However, a Remington man'adamantly refused to believe the designation would not increase recreational usage of the river and make it more difficult for him to protect his riverfront home and land.

“We don’t see the need,” Robert E. Lee Currier said of the proposal “I will stand in the way of this (designation) because it does not benefit me or anyone at all.”

Mr. Currier said he is not concerned about courteous river-goers but rather about people who throw parties along the stream and who are careless about the river, the land and local residents. Mr. Currier said he and his wife have suffered through all sorts of “garbage and insults” from rude people and “were tired of it.”

He believes the designation would open his land up to public usage which he said is akin to “socialism or communism.”

“I spent the better part of my life fighting that attitude and I don’t intend to give up now,” Mr. Currier said.

For the most part, the reaction from the rest of the crowd was positive.

Chris J. Duerksen, a Fredericksburg city councilman, sees the designation as giving smaller communities more clout to fight any plans a larger community — such as one in Northern Virginia — might have to divert water from the river for drinking. Fredericksburg depends on the river for its drinking water.

Norman Pearson, a member of the Fauquier Planning Commission and