Mizell opposed the Appalachian Power Company's Blue Ridge Power Project, a plan to build two dams on the New River. He was concerned about the project's impact: "Changing the basis for this environmental destruction from ‘pollution‐dilution’ to ‘power crisis’ does not lessen or eliminate the environmental destruction itself...Just as much land will . . . be flooded. The same number of families will be uprooted, business inconvenienced or lost, and farms destroyed . . .mudflats reservoir drawdowns would still blight the land that now provides a classic definition of nature's beauty." He proposed legislation authorizing the Army Corps of Engineers to discover the "recreational, conservation, and preservation uses" of the river in 1972 and 1973. Then, in 1974, he introduced a House Bill that would designate the river part of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System (NWSRS). North Carolina Senators Sam Ervin and Jesse Helms introduced a parallel bill that passed the Senate, but the House Bill stalled. It was not until 1976 that Congress would amend the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, adding 26.5 miles of the river to the NWSRS and effectively thwarting the Blue Ridge Power Project.