UT's Energy, Environment
and Resources Center Presents
Smoky Mountain
Resource Issues in Great Smoky Mountains National Park
SIGHTLINE
FALL/WINTER 2002
Vol. 3 No. 2
***
Editor: David Brill; Assistant Editor: Constance Griffith; Writers: Kris Christen, Lisa Byerley Gary, Elise LeQuire, Dennis McCarthy, and Becky Nichols. Graphic Designer: Lisa Byerley Gary.
SIGHTLINE is published on behalf of
Great Smoky Mountains National
Park
by the
Energy, Environment and Resources
Center (EERC)
at the
University of Tennessee.
EERC conducts research designed to promote real-world solutions to problems in the fields of energy, environment, technology, and economic development.
For additional information, write EERC, 311 Conference Center Building, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996-4134, call 865-974-4251, or visit our Web site at http://eerc.ra.utk.edu.
SIGHTLINE is sponsored by:
and
Long
‘Road to Nowhere’
A
road planned in the 1940s but never built has sparked more than six
decades of controversy and polarized conservationists and some residents
of Bryson City, North Carolina.
by Kris Christen
Back in 1943, when Fontana Dam was built to produce hydroelectric power, a pact was fashioned among the citizens of Swain County, North Carolina—which encompasses Bryson City—the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), and the National Park Service (NPS). As part of that agreement, TVA agreed to transfer 44,000 acres of the county land it had acquired for the dam project to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP). In return, the Park Service agreed, contingent upon Congressional appropriation of funds, to build a new 37.5-mile road along the north shore of the newly created Fontana Lake to replace NC 288, which was flooded by the reservoir.
Proponents of the road, both then and now, have touted the proposed project as a way to increase tourism and promote economic growth in Swain County, one of the poorest in the Southern Appalachians. According to environmental groups, among them, the National Parks Conservation Association, the road would be “an environmental disaster,” bisecting the largest roadless tract of mountainous terrain in the eastern United States. Opponents also point out that another road built outside GSMNP boundaries along the southern shore of Fontana Lake makes the road along the Lake’s north shore superfluous.
The Park Service completed nearly eight miles of the road—including a segment from the Park’s eastern boundary near Bryson City—during the 1960s. Encountering steep slopes and highly acidic Anakeesta rock during the construction, however, the agency opted to discontinue the work due to the unforeseen expense and environmental damage, according to Bob Miller, GSMNP spokesperson.
In the interim, key laws such as the Wilderness Act, National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), Endangered Species Act, Historic Preservation Act, and clean air and water acts have been passed, “all of which bear upon the decision of whether or not any road should ever be built there,” Miller says. Consequently, since the 1980s when the Park’s last general management plan was prepared, the Park Service position has been that the road shouldn’t be built because of the environmental and economic cost. Instead, the agency’s favored alternative was to resolve the North Shore Road issue by way of a cash settlement to Swain County in lieu of building the road.
Enter Politics
A $16 million rider attached to an appropriations bill for the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) by Congressman Charles Taylor (R-N.C.) in 2000, however, is now forcing the Park Service to take another look at the project. In getting the measure passed, Taylor inserted language into the bill that the funds were “for the construction of, and improvements to, North Shore Road in Swain County, North Carolina.” Neither the Park Service nor DOT had requested the funding, and no mention was made of the fact that the road would transect GSMNP.
“The government just hasn’t fulfilled its responsibility and obligation to the people of Swain County,” says Martha Peterson, a district representative in Taylor’s Asheville, North Carolina, office in response to why Taylor sponsored the rider. “When the government took that land and flooded the highway out there, they agreed to build that road, but they’ve never done it.”
And that unfulfilled promise has kept this issue alive all these years. Some legislative attempts have been made by others, most notably former Senators Terry Sanford (D-N.C.) and Jim Sasser (D-Tenn.), to resolve the issue through a cash settlement to Swain County in lieu of the road. But Senator Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) was able to block passage of those bills, says Greg Kidd, associate director of the National Parks Conservation Association’s (NPCA) southeast regional office.
“The [Swain] County commissioners tell us they want the road, locals say they want the road, and a cash settlement wasn’t part of the original agreement,” Peterson maintains. “Swain County gave up a lot when it gave up that land, which it never received proper compensation for.”
Indeed, Jim Douthit, chairman of the Swain County commissioners, says “we just want them to uphold the contract.” The commissioners fully expect the road to bring in more visitors, helping the area become a thriving tourist entrance to the Park like Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, and even Townsend, Tennessee.
Environmental Considerations
Before any construction can begin, however, an environmental impact statement will have to be undertaken to comply with NEPA, and according to Miller, a DOT consulting contract for this purpose was about to be awarded as Sightline went to press. Miller points out though that the $16 million won’t come anywhere near the more than $150 million the road construction is expected to cost, and that price tag “doesn’t even begin to include planning, design, environmental compliance, maintenance, and whatever else comes up.”
Environmental concerns center on the strong probability that road construction would expose extremely acidic Anakeesta rock, which produces acids and heavy metals that leach into streams and kill aquatic life, according to the Park Service. The road would also cross successive ridges in an area containing crumbling, faulted, and unstable rock and would thus require extensive cuts and fills. Researchers have also determined that road-building tends to fragment habitats, causing a reduction in wildlife, especially bears.
Another point to consider is
that building the road would be a major departure from Park Service policy
in recent years, Miller says. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Park Service was
very much in a pro-development mode, and superintendents were judged by
how many roads, campgrounds, and visitor centers they could get built, he
explains. “That changed throughout the 1980s and 1990s, when we became
much more preservation minded.” New laws like NEPA, which require much
more public review and input in planning for developments in the national
park system, drove much of this trend. “But I think it’s a cultural
change, too, and a recognition that development is proceeding at a rapid
rate throughout country, especially in the East, and if there are going to
be any places saved, they are likely to be on public lands,” Miller
says. “As more and more roads are built outside the Park, that makes
every piece of land that doesn’t have road on it that much more
special.”
At a Crossroad
Many residents in Swain County are beginning to question the merits of the proposed road. These people, like Luke Hyde, an attorney and business owner in Bryson City, grew up believing that the government owed them a road, primarily to give them access to the cemeteries where their ancestors are buried. Once Fontana Dam was built, the lake left these cemeteries isolated and difficult to reach. “But I found out that the original agreement didn’t say anything about building a road to cemeteries in Swain County,” Hyde says.
That point was driven home by a 1983 U.S. District Court decision. The North Shore Cemetery Association had brought suit against the Department of Interior to try to force the Park Service to build the road, but the court found that “the cemetery association had no standing to force Park Service to do anything,” Miller says. An appeals court upheld the decision, and the Supreme Court refused to hear the case.
To date, says Hyde, the commissioners’ arguments have not fully resolved whether the proposed road would foster significant economic growth in the region. Failing to find any studies to back up the economic-development position, “we did our own, based on DOT traffic figures for North Carolina and Cades Cove,” says Roger Turner, a field officer for the Western North Carolina Alliance, a grassroots conservation organization. “We came to the conclusion that it would take 18,000 cars per day every day of the year to equal the interest from a $40-million financial settlement”—a settlement advocated by a new citizen’s group called Citizens for the Economic Future of Swain County (CEFSC).
“That’s a whole lot of cars, and they would all be going right through the middle of Bryson City, and nobody around here wants that,” says Hyde, who helped form CEFSC. The $40 million lump sum payment is based on the 1943 value of the old NC 288, compounded over 59 years, according to the CEFSC. The interest alone would bear between $2-$2.5 million annually, one-third the current county budget of $7 million, without the traffic and congestion, Hyde says.
And, NPCA’s Kidd notes, the $40-million settlement would be much less costly than building a road. NPCA, along with other environmental groups, strongly supports the cash settlement. “The bottom line is that the federal government certainly owes the people of Swain County something for the promise that was made, and clearly the $40 million is a much better deal for the American taxpayer,” Kidd says.
While the issue may be far from resolution, perhaps the voice of reason will yet methodically hammer out an equitable solution. For the time being, though, the proposed North Shore Road appears to be leading nowhere.
For more information, contact Bob Miller, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, 107 Park Headquarters Road, Gatlinburg, TN 37738, or call 865-436-1207.
Another Echo from the Past
A proposed land swap between the Park and a Cherokee Indian tribe could set a major precedent, and a number of natural and cultural resources are at stake.
by Kris Christen
An issue that has resurfaced in Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP) centers around a 168-acre parcel of land adjacent to a Cherokee Indian reservation and within the boundaries of the Park.
Each time a new GSMNP superintendent or NPS director has been put in place, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians has submitted a new request for acquiring the land from the National Park Service (NPS), says Bob Miller, Park spokesperson. During the early 1970s through 1994, this request laid out the tribe’s need for the land to build a golf course as a way of enhancing economic development on the reservation. After 1994, the tribe revised its request, citing its need to replace old, dilapidated schools; the latest proposal outlines the tribe’s intent to use the land for a new three-school complex that would serve as an environmental, cultural, and educational center where the Cherokee language and culture would be taught alongside the standard curriculum.
According to the tribe, this land, known as the Ravensford tract, is the only parcel of suitable size, location, and terrain for such construction near the reservation. Moreover, acquiring this tract would reunify tribal lands currently separated by the Blue Ridge Parkway. In exchange, the tribe would purchase and transfer to the Park Service 218 acres, known as the Yellow Face tract, which is adjacent to the Waterrock Knob overlook of the Blue Ridge Parkway. If approved, this land would then become part of the parkway.
Until 2002, the Park Service has consistently denied the tribe’s request, citing concerns regarding the protection of natural and cultural resources.
For instance, in a 1994 letter responding to an inquiry from Senator Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), a long-time proponent of the proposed land transfer, then NPS Director Roger Kennedy explained that the Park Service had rejected the golf course and school proposals on the grounds that such development “would be totally contrary to the purpose for which the land was placed within the park, i.e., to preserve its scenic, natural, and cultural resources.” Further, Kennedy cited concerns that “carving into the park for this project” could lead to development proposals by other entrance communities, “all of which are nearing the limits of their developable land.” And he listed the example of Gatlinburg, Tennessee, which had requested permission to build flood control facilities inside the Park’s northern entrance—a request the Park Service also rejected.
Politics at Play
A wrinkle in this stance appeared in 2000, however, when then NPS Director Robert Stanton agreed to undertake a feasibility study to determine whether the land was suitable for exchange, “and that’s where we’re at now,” Miller says.
The Park Service currently has no official position on the exchange and is evaluating the natural and cultural resources on both the Ravensford and Yellow Face tracts to determine whether the exchange should go forward. The tribe is footing the bill for these studies, and a draft environmental impact statement (EIS) is slated to be released for public review in late 2002 or early 2003. The options under consideration include no exchange, an exchange with restrictions on the use of the Ravensford tract, and an exchange with no restrictions.
A bill (H.R. 5468) introduced by Congressman Charles Taylor (R-N.C.) in late September, however, could preempt this public process if passed, bringing about the land exchange legislatively with few restrictions on how the Cherokee could use the property. At press time, the bill had been referred to the House Committee on Resources, which has jurisdiction over the NPS.
(National Park Service)
This newly discovered moth species was found on the
Ravensford tract in Great Smoky Mountains national Park.
Resources in the Balance
Tribal Chief Leon Jones maintains that the land trade would offer a “win-win-win situation” in that the Park Service “will have more land and natural resources under its protection after the exchange; Cherokee children will have a beautiful, safe, and environmentally friendly school campus; and the American people will benefit from the preservation of both the natural resources and the Cherokee culture.”
The resources on the Yellow Face tract include valuable high-altitude seeps, as well as habitat for two endangered and threatened species—namely, the northern flying squirrel and rock gnome lichen, according to the legislative text of Taylor’s bill. The text states further that securing this land for the Blue Ridge Parkway would keep rapidly advancing residential development at bay. Studies conducted in preparation for the draft EIS have also found 31 species new to science on the tract, but no significant archaeological resources and no other natural resources not present elsewhere in GSMNP or the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Greg Kidd, associate director of the National Parks Conservation Association’s (NPCA) southeast regional office, points out that while the steep slopes and cliff bluffs contained on the Yellow Face tract are certainly worthy of protection, the land is not unlike other areas in the Park.
The Ravensford parcel, on the other hand, hosts the Park’s largest true wetland, and natural resource studies to date have found unusual geology, soils, and habitats supporting numerous species found nowhere else in the Park, including 55 species that are new to science, says Larry Hartmann, chief of resource management and science at GSMNP. Other findings have revealed more than 200 species never before recorded in the Park, two globally rare habitats, and important viewsheds for the Blue Ridge Parkway. Additionally, the tract has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1982 and has an archaeological record dating back at least 8000 years, and possibly more than 10,000 years, Hartmann says. The proposed development, according to the Park Service “would require extensive clearing, grading, and excavation, potentially disturbing both the natural systems and archeological deposits.”
Moreover, Kidd raises
concerns about the light and noise pollution impacts the proposed school
complex would have on GSMNP and the Blue Ridge Parkway, as well as
potential risks from mosquito-borne illnesses. “Because the school would
be placed within 100 feet of a wetland known to contain more than 20
species of mosquitoes, West Nile virus, encephalitis, and other
mosquito-borne illnesses could pose a threat to Cherokee children and
school staff,” Kidd says.
Precedent-setting Decision
Irrespective of the natural and cultural resources at hand is the big question of what kind of precedent such an exchange would present.
“There have certainly been other exchanges, and legislation that allows for exchanges of tracts in and out of national parks is there primarily to facilitate exchanges that are of mutual benefit,” Miller says. “The question is, are these natural and cultural resources that we’re being asked to exchange away significant, and if so, could they be protected following an exchange? That’s basically what the EIS is supposed to show.”
Kidd contends, however, that NPS lacks the authority to conduct such a land exchange, and that if it were to proceed, the door would be open for other interested parties to request similar exchanges with NPS.
“The law the Park Service is pointing to was designed very specifically as a tool to allow them to eliminate private pieces of property surrounded by national park land,” he says, adding that two tests have to be met for that particular provision to pass muster, “neither of which is met in this case.”
First, any non-federal land being proffered for exchange must be within a Park System unit or on land otherwise administered by the U.S. Department of Interior, he explains. “In this case, the non-federal property being offered is a privately owned piece that’s completely outside the boundaries of any federal holding, and it’s not administered by the interior department.”
Secondly, the interior secretary must determine that a federal piece of property is suitable for exchange. Here, Kidd notes that the law that brought the Park Service into existence also directed it to protect unimpaired all of the Park’s resources for future generations. “Based on all the regulations and policies defining what this means, you’d have to conclude that only a fairly marginal piece of land could be considered for such an exchange, and it’s clear that the Ravensford tract protects a large number of important resources,” he says.
“Although we recognize and applaud the pledge the Cherokee have made to improve their schools, we remain convinced that there are alternative sites available for the construction of these schools,” Kidd notes, adding that if Taylor’s legislation forces the exchange or the NPS director makes the decision to go ahead, NPCA plans to file a lawsuit.
Nobody disagrees that the Cherokee tribe needs new schools and that education is very important, Hartmann says. “The Cherokee have their own language, both written and spoken, and they want to make sure they don’t lose that. They feel that having the three schools together would help revitalize the Cherokee language and culture.”
But the fact remains, Miller notes, “that many mountain communities from Gatlinburg, Tennessee, to Bryson City, North Carolina, have a limited amount of flat, developable land to use for public purposes. It always comes down to choices, and until now, none of our neighbors has been granted permission to expand into the national park.”
For more information, contact Larry Hartmann, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, 107 Park Headquarters Road, Gatlinburg, TN 37738, or call 865-436-1245.