From the Desk of Lamar Alexander
http://alexander.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&PressRelease_id=1078&Month=12&Year=2006
SEN. ALEXANDER SAYS STOPPING ‘ROAD TO NOWHERE’ WOULD BE GOOD CHRISTMAS PRESENT FOR TENNESSEE Urges New Park Service Director to Abandon Construction Plans
December 21, 2006
The Honorable Mary A. Bomar
Director
National Park Service
1849 C Street NW
Washington, D.C. 20240
Dear Director Bomar,
I am writing to suggest that a good Christmas present for the people of Tennessee and North Carolina would be a National Park Service decision to abandon the proposed $600 million "Road to Nowhere" through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
The Environmental Impact Statement review for this proposed road is near a conclusion. Now is the time to bring this dispute – which has lasted since World War II – to an end. There is surely a federal obligation to the people of Swain County, North Carolina, but the U.S. Supreme Court has said there is no legal requirement to satisfy it by building this road. Common sense, as the elected Swain County Commissioners and the governors of Tennessee and North Carolina have said, suggests a cash settlement instead.
The proposed road would be a stupendous waste of taxpayer dollars – costing at least 75 times the annual roads budget for the Smokies – and it would be an environmental disaster, tearing up slopes and streams in one of the largest wilderness areas of the eastern United States.
I have opposed this road since 1984 when, as governor, I hiked the Forney Creek area of the Park where the road would be built. I reported what I had seen to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, on which I now serve. I have not changed my mind. I am enclosing my February 2006 letter to former Interior Secretary Gale Norton that further outlines my opposition to the road.
I urge you to brighten this Holiday Season by making the decision to abandon this ill-advised road so that we can begin to work together on an appropriate cash settlement for Swain County.
Sincerely,
Lamar Alexander
United States Senate
Enclosure
cc:
The Honorable Dirk Kempthorne
The Honorable Phil Bredesen
Members of the Tennessee Congressional delegation
Food for thought, what do you think?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Sounds like he was really worried. Could it be that the North is a real possiblity. Alexander's comments on slopes and highway budgets doesn't hold weight when such torn up slopes and highway work have been and are currently underway on US 441 within Tennessee's side of the GSMNP.
Note the date of the letter. This is news?
Not news but back ground to the current situation. The intent of Alexander's efforts is to perserve the integrety of the North Carolina Side of the park as is for Tennessee. As well as to limit the budgetary needs of the North Carolina side of the Smokeys so as to not crimp the style of the Tennessee side.
There is a huge difference in the road access on the Tennessee and North Carolina sides of the park. However, the reason for it is not a conspiracy. It unfolded day by day in front of our very eyes.
Road construction today is much more difficult to accomplish anywhere in the park than it was in the 60's, 70's and 80's. The environmental oppositition was not as big nor as well organized as they are today.
While the people in Tennessee were telling their representatives and senators to appropriate money for road access Swain County had a different message. These were the days of Jesse Helms, a very powerful politician in Washington. At that time the message Helms was getting from Swain County Republicans was very much the same message of the road supporters today. Instead of following the Tn example and doing a little here and a little there all the time accumulating a sophiscated road system, the message of Swain County republicans was The North Shore road. You can still hear some say today "it's the road or nothing". And what do we have - nothing. Helms and subsequently Taylor could have been told to adopt a piecemeal approach to improve access here and there over time and then to tie it all together but that's not what they were told. And obviously what they were told to try to do, they could not accomplish.
A lot could have been done during those years it's too late now. It's not Tennessee's fault or Alexander's. It was poor decision making and poor leadership right here in Swain County, particularly in the Republican party.
Is today any different?
Post a Comment