UT's Energy, Environment and Resources Center Presents 

Smoky Mountain

Resource Issues in Great Smoky Mountains National Park 

 SIGHTLINE

SPRING/SUMMER 2003
Vol. 4 No. 1

RAMPING DOWN

SITE LOCATOR MAPFOR GSMNP STORIES

HUMAN INTERACTION Elkmont in the Balance

WILDLIFE

INVASIONS

WATER

AIR

 ***

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:

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Elkmont in the Balance

The Park Service is wrestling with how best to preserve Elkmont’s historical and cultural resources without adversely impacting the remaining natural environment.

Back in the early 1900s, as the logging era neared its peak in the southern Appalachians, lumberjacks denuded vast swaths through forests that would later become Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP). When the trees were gone, most camps set up to harvest timber disappeared, too. One of the last lumber camps, known as Elkmont, survived by taking on a new role, as summer vacationers bought small plots of land from the Little River Lumber Company. Over time, the area developed into a resort enclave of 74 cottages, outbuildings, and a hotel.

As the Park was being created, most Elkmont property owners negotiated and chose to receive cash settlements that were less than fair market value—or half payment for their property—in exchange for a lifetime lease to use the property. These leases were renegotiated several times over the years for various reasons and all but three expired in 1992; those terminated in 1996 and 2001. 

In 1982, the Park published its current general management plan, which had been developed with public input and called for the removal of all structures as leases would expire. The land would then be allowed to return to its natural state. Shortly after the cabin owners vacated their dwellings in 1992, however, Elkmont was placed on the National Register of Historic Places as a historic district, with 42 of the 74 structures considered as contributing elements. This action required (1) that the Park Service comply with management stipulations under the National Environmental Policy Act and (2) that it adhere to those of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) as well.

The buildings, most vacant and unused since 1992, have deteriorated into considerable disrepair, and some people have repeatedly called on Park officials to follow the original plan of action, to remove all or most of the structures. Others, primarily former leaseholders and their descendants, want to see the hotel and cabins restored for overnight use by the public.

It’s clear now, according to Park officials, that significant impacts—either to the natural resources or to the cultural resources— are unavoidable, depending on which way the decision falls. The question is how to balance the tradeoffs that ultimately must come.

As part of the decision process, the Park Service has held a series of public meetings and identified an assortment of six management alternatives for the Elkmont Historic District, ranging from complete removal to full rehabilitation and commercialization of the structures.

Under the first alternative, the above-ground structures would be removed, allowing natural reclamation to run its course, with some of the stonework and foundations left to provide a link to the past. The alternative on the other end of the spectrum emphasizes reuse, with the Park retaining most of the buildings to provide overnight accommodations for large numbers of people, as well as dining facilities for the general public. Natural resource protection and educational interpretation areas would depend on operational procedures and visitor regulations required of the concessionaire.

Options falling in the middle call for varying degrees of restoration based on the historical significance and structural integrity of the buildings, as well as varying uses ranging from interpretive natural and cultural resource exhibits to curatorial space and overnight use by visiting scientists.

The estimated cost of the identified alternatives runs from $1 million to $25.6 million, but "these are very rough order estimates right now," says Ian Shanklin, one of the Park’s landscape architects. The price tags don’t include maintenance, merely implementation, and are likely to rise considerably, particularly for the full rehabilitation option. Shanklin, notes, however, that under NHPA, "we’re not allowed to use economics as a basis not to consider alternatives. During the impact analysis, that will obviously be a large factor, and if the money’s not there, it’s obviously not a feasible alternative at that point."

Park officials expected to release a final description of the alternative actions this summer, "at which point, we’ll go back and take a detailed look at all of the potential resource impacts and costs of each of the alternatives," says Bob Miller, GSMNP spokesperson. Conclusions will be defined in an environmental impact statement likely to be completed in late spring or early summer of 2004.

So far, the Park Service has conducted baseline surveys of the natural and cultural resources that abound in the Elkmont area (see www.elkmont-gmpa-ea.com). Some preliminary shovel testing has revealed early Paleo-Indian artifacts, with Cherokee artifacts likely to exist as well, says David Chapman, a Park Service historian.

Key natural resources include a rare, montane alluvial forest; a wealth of plant diversity and wildlife, including the renowned synchronous fireflies; and pristine water quality that has earned the Little River, which flows through Elkmont, a ranking as one of Tennessee’s Outstanding Natural Resource Waters.

The Park Service has also analyzed the architecture of the resort buildings, delving into the stories these structures convey about the owners and vacationers who spent time there, some of whom were instrumental in the GSMNP’s formation.

Architectural characteristics that netted the Elkmont structures a place on the National Historic Register include overhanging eaves, exposed rafters, foundation stonework, and low windows and porches typical of the Craftsman movement, says Claudette Stagar, a historic preservation specialist with the Tennessee Historical Commission (THC). Such construction is in tune with "the back-tonature movement of tying a building in with its environment."

According to Martha Catlin, a program analyst with the federal Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP), this style can be found in some national park lodges, as well as urban and rural residential architecture, but is no longer well represented in the Southeast.

Ultimately, the decision on Elkmont’s future will rest with the Park Service, in consultation with THC and ACHP—agencies whose goal is "to save as many buildings as possible," Stagar says. "When we looked at this for national register eligibility, we looked at it as a whole group of buildings, not as isolated structures here and there." None of the three agencies involved, however, has a preferred alternative at this point.

From a practical standpoint, implementing any of the alternatives will cost money, which is already in short supply at the Park. Currently, the Park Service employs four people full time in historic preservation to maintain 77 buildings in the Park.

"Adding an additional 50 or more would mean that unless there was some pretty significant new money in the Park’s base to maintain those buildings, we’re in danger of compromising the condition of the others like Cable Mill in Cades Cove or Palmer Chapel in Cataloochee, which we’re already challenged to keep up as it is," Miller says.

Ironically, the most expensive alternative—full restoration of all structures for commercial use—may turn out to be one of the more affordable, because private businesses could be required make a substantial investment in the restoration in exchange for a concession contract to operate in a national park.

To open the Elkmont cabins for public overnight use, they would have to meet the same standards for health and safety as any lodging facility outside the Park, Miller explains. He lists fire suppression, leadpaint abatement, water supply, asbestos removal, and accessibility to the disabled as key features of any rehabilitation plans, adding that "it would be very tall order to make them all meet current standards for use as rental housing or as tourist concession housing."

Another consideration is how such rehabilitation might affect the historical character of the structures, Shanklin notes. Both Stagar and Catlin point out that current adaptive reuse standards allow the Park Service to modify the buildings to make them habitable, but how the properties are used becomes an important factor.

"If you altered the historic fabric to the extent that it would lose its national register characteristics, you’d be defeating the purpose," Catlin says.

A major issue on the environmental end is the question of sewage treatment. An existing facility handles waste from the adjoining Elkmont campground, but it’s not certain that the Little River could sustain any additional sewage or runoff inputs that would likely occur with overnight cabin use.

"We would not be able to get a discharge permit to increase the volume of effluent from that facility," Miller acknowledges. "That doesn’t mean you couldn’t do it," but available alternatives include building a pipeline to Gatlinburg, tanking it and trucking it out, or building some kind of above-ground disposal system such as leach fields. "It’s doable, but it’s expensive, and there are certainly natural resource and archaeological considerations with all of those," Miller says.

For more information, contact Ian Shanklin, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, 107 Park Headquarters Road, Gatlinburg, TN 37738, or call 865-436-1318.

Friends Group fights Invasive Pest, funds Elk Reintroduction

Friends of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, a Sightline sponsor, has allotted $10,000 from its sale of Tennessee specialty license plates to help the Park Service fight the hemlock woolly adelgid. 

The adelgid threatens to decimate the hemlock trees—some of which are 400 years old and stand 170 feet tall—in Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP). (See "Saving Grace" in the Fall/Winter 2002 issue of Sightline.)

The Park Service has launched an effort to control the pest through use of insecticidal sprays, soil injections, and release of a predator beetle that feeds on adelgid eggs. The Friends group is currently working with the National Forest Service and the University of Tennessee to set up a laboratory for breeding the beetle, Pseudoscymnus tsugae. 

"Every dollar we can spend now to limit the spread of this exotic insect gives us hope for more complete containment of the problem in the future," says Friends Executive Director Jim Hart.

Friends is using $20,000 in funds from the sale of North Carolina specialty license plates to support the experimental release of elk in Cataloochee Valley in GSMNP. The $20,000 donation is part of a plan to raise $200,000 over five years to support the elk reintroduction. (See "Smokies’ Elk Population Tops 50" on page 11.)

The Friends organization was created in 1993 to assist GSMNP in its mission to preserve and protect the Park. Since its founding, the Friends has raised more than $8 million in support of GSMNP.

For more information, contact Friends of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, P.O. Box 5650, Sevierville TN 37864-5650, call 800-845-5665, or email fotsmail@bellsouth. net. Visit the Friends Web site at www.friendsofthesmokies.org.