Road No Longer Threatens Smokies

An end to the 'Road to Nowhere.'

After 60 plus years of debate, this January the National Park Service issued a Record of Decision that formally recommended a cash settlement to Swain County in lieu of the North Shore Road, which would sidle Lake Fontana and cut a 34-mile cement path through the Great Smoky Mountains. The Sierra Club applauds this decision.

One important challenge remains - to honor our committment to Swain County for compensation in lieu of the road.

View of Fontana Lake in Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Environmental Impact

Lying in the Southern Appalachians, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is a World Heritage Site for its diversity of wildlife and its temperate deciduous forests. The proposed road would cut a permanent, deep gash through the roadless mountain tract - the largest in federal ownership in the Eastern United States - home to songbirds, bear, deer, and elk. Large veins of phyritic rock, which produces sulfuric acid when exposed, would be disturbed during construction of the North Shore Road. Acidic runoff would devastate fish and salamander populations. In short, the road would forever alter the world's most biologically diverse temperate zone.

Background

Drawing from an expansive environmental impact study, Smokies Superintendent Dale Ditmenson said the settlement would, "both compensate Swain County and protect the resources of the park."

In late 2007, Congress passed an omnibus Appropriations bill that included $6 million for Swain County. The Secretary of the Interior, the Swain County Commission, the North Carolina Governor's Office and the Tennesse Valley Authority, all of whom signed the original North Shore agreement in 1943, are scheduled to amend the original agreement before Swain County can receive funds.

The controversy over the 38 mile road through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park began in 1943 with a limited agreement to replace NC 288, which had been flooded to build Tennessee Valley Authority's Fontana Dam. Seven miles were completed in the 1960's but then abandoned because of environmental and engineering problems, leading to the nickname "the road to nowhere." The plan to replace NC 288 was contingent on federal appropriations.

Over the next 40 years, the land intended for construction received proposals for wilderness designation several times, but those efforts were successfully blocked by U.S. Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC). Helms retired in 2002 and many thought the North Shore Road project was dead. But in 2000, then U.S. Representative Charles Taylor revived the project with a $16 million appropriation.

(click here for more on the history of the project)

In 2006, 11^th Congressional district residents elected Heath Shuler, an opponent of the project from Swain County, to replace project supporter Rep. Charles Taylor. In late 2007 Congress passed an omnibus Appropriations bill, thus beginning the process leading to a monetary settlement between the National Park Service and Swain County. North Carolina’s Rep.Heath Shuler and Tennessee’s Sen. Lamar Alexander played a leadership role in securing this appropriation.

Together with the Swain County Board of Commisioners, the NC and TN chapters of the Sierra Club support a cash settlement as opposed to continued construction on the North Shore Road in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. If further acted upon by Congress, a settlement would protect the natural state of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. And Swain County, one of the poorest counties in North Carolina, would gain greater economic flexibility and stability.

photo to the right: protestors advocate for a cash settlement at proposed site

Links:

Press release, office of Sen. Alexander, July 12, 2007
http://alexander.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&PressRelease_Id=1220

Press release, National Parks Service, May 25, 2007 on status of North Shore Road EIS
http://www.nps.gov/grsm/parknews/northshore5-07.htm