For years the water in western North Carolina’s Cheoah River was collected and piped overland to a power station on the neighboring Little Tennessee River, leaving behind a river bed fed by a trickle of water coming through the dam and water flowing in from downstream tributaries. One of the great conservation success stories of recent years has been the return of flow to that dewatered stretch of river, a commitment made by Alcoa as part of the deal struck to allow them to continue using the river to generate electricity.