Selling the Cheat. (Clippings).

It's a place where water rushes through West Virginia's Cheat Gorge, where kayakers and hikers gather on warm days. A rare snail finds its home here, as does an endangered bat flying among the many winding caves in the area. But it's a place that is also for sale to the highest bidder.

Allegheny Energy, a financially strapped, Maryland-based utility, plans to generate much-needed millions by selling 5,600 undeveloped acres in the gorge and along the picturesque Big Sandy Creek. The state and a group of local activists are calling on kayakers, spelunkers, hikers. outfitters, homeowners, and environmentalists to contribute in an attempt to keep the canyon out of the bands of loggers or developers.

The canyon, which is about 75 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, also features small patches of virgin forest in areas too rocky and steep to be logged, along with gravel and sand bars that create habitat for plants, insects, and animals such as the endangered Indiana bat and the flat-spired three-toothed land snail.

The Indiana bat dwells in the dozens of limestone caves--the Cornwell Cave network has 13 miles of passages. The flat-spired three-toothed land snail is known to exist only in the canyon, where it has been spotted in as many as 90 locations within a 10-mile section of sandstone cliffs.

A recent Environmental News Service report quoted Allegheny Energy spokesman Allen Staggers as declining to say how much the company hopes to get for the land, but state officials and others are certain it will sell for more than the minimum acceptable bid of $4.8 million.

Allegheny bought the Preston County land in the 1920s for hydropower projects that were never built. In recent years it has begun selling tracts throughout the region, including nearly 12,000 acres to the Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge in 2002.

The people who use the 16-mile, thickly forested piece of land have enjoyed a long-standing public access arrangement with Allegheny and now fear for the tract's future.