Saints

Saints at the River, by Ron Rash, is a novel that brings light to the controversy of conservation and effectively relays both sides of the argument with very limited biased. There are many factors that influence the controversy and its surrounding issues, but the primary decision is whether or not nature should be preserved or commercialized. While the young girl’s father uses an emotional argument and only wants his daughter’s body, many of the people supporting him care much more about using this as a bridge to use the river for industry. The conflict would be best mediated to only take into consideration the two sides from which the argument came about: the river conservation and retrieving the body. The resolution would either leave the girl or figure out a way to retrieve here, not allowing a change in laws or policies in order to allow commercialization or degradation of the river whatsoever. The best way to resolve both sides of the argument is to ensure a solution that obtains the girls body without altering the river permanently. The girl’s body should be retrieved using the portable dam through a temporary exception to the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. The girl’s body should be retrieved then the Tamassee placed back to pristine and preserved status. The river needs to stay free of commercialization and degradation of its natural beauty but sympathy must be given to the Kowalsky family in that the daughter cannot be forgotten. The best available option easily seems to be the portable dam, granted there are strict rules used to ensure this a one-time event; it should be stated, as to prevent other occurrences, that the National Act was temporarily waived only for emotional distress because of an big event, in this case a death. This issue could potentially even be written into the national conservation laws: the possibility of a very temporary alteration of wild/scenic rivers only in the event of a seriously traumatizing event