Great Smoky Mountains National Park doesn't need another road
by REP President Martha Marks published in October 2002 in the Knoxville (TN) News-Leader
Bad ideas have a way of hanging on, long after logic and common sense should have buried them.
The proposed North Shore Road in Great Smoky Mountains National Park is one of those bad ideas. For decades, local boosters and their political allies have lobbied for this project, which dangles over the park like the sword of Damocles.
The National Park Service doesn't want the road but the Bush administration has renewed the push, with the strong prodding of retiring Senator Jesse Helms and Representative Charles Taylor, both North Carolina Republicans. In 2001, Helms and Taylor secured a $16 million appropriation to begin building the road.
The road won't be constructed without a fight. The project has powerful opponents. David Mihalic, a Park Service veteran who had been scheduled to take over as the Smokies' superintendent, has decided to retire rather than take orders to punch a road into the Appalachian wilderness.
Former Tennessee Governor and Senate candidate Lamar Alexander said: "That road would be a disaster. I will do everything in my power to stop it."
If built, the road would compromise the largest undeveloped wilderness in the East and add one more environmental stress to a national park already suffering from power plant pollution and traffic.
As a general rule, roads and wildlands don't mix. Highways chase away wildlife and make back country more accessible for poachers. Traffic pollutes the air with noxious gases and disturbs the natural quiet of mountains and forests.
Pavement is a conduit for oil, grease, and other pollutants to enter creeks. Road cuts are another source of water pollution. One reason construction of the road was stopped in the 1960s was the presence of acids and heavy metals in rock that can be leached out by rainwater, enter streams, and harm aquatic life.
Road cuts are eyesores anyway. Building the North Shore Road in such steep terrain would require large cuts that would scar the park's natural beauty. It would be as unsightly as putting a billboard on the Washington Monument.
The Smokies have special qualities that warrant rigorous protection against the risks of damaging development. The Smokies have some of the largest remaining old-growth forests east of the Mississippi River.
As a wildlife crossroads, the Smokies rival the vaunted tropical rain forests as a biological "hot spot" -- count 'em, 1,600 species of flowering plants, 130 types of trees, 230 varieties of birds. If you like salamanders, the Smokies is the world capital, with 30 species.
So why would anyone want to punch a road through this special land? The origin of the idea goes back to the 1940s, when the Tennessee Valley Authority built Fontana Dam on the Little Tennessee River. TVA, the Park Service, the state of North Carolina, and Swain County in North Carolina agreed to build a park-standard scenic drive to replace an unpaved road flooded by the Fontana reservoir.
Times change. By the time plans to build the road got underway in the 1960s, the American people were waking up to the need to protect the nation's environmental quality and natural heritage. Conservationists were alarmed at the damage a road would do to the park's natural features and wildlife.
A pitched battle over the North Shore Road and Park Service proposals for a second transmountain road got the attention of President Nixon's Interior Secretary, Walter Hickel. He ordered the Park Service to study the roads issue.
The result: the Park Service backed off. The 1982 park general management plan now protects 88 percent of the park as de facto wilderness.
Project proponents say the road is necessary to provide access to cemeteries isolated when the Fontana reservoir was filled. But the Park Service already furnishes transportation for people who wish to visit the graves of relatives in the cemeteries.
Another issue is Swain County's claim that it was promised a road. The issue can be resolved with a cash compensation payment from Uncle Sam.
The Smokies road controversy is another example of a political pattern that bedevils public lands everywhere in America -- recurring attempts to milk national assets for local economic gain. Whether it's snowmobiles in Yellowstone or a road in the Smokies, there is a never-ending danger that America's special places will be compromised to the point that they're no longer special and become yet more regretful memories of a lost heritage.
National parks are the crown jewels of America's natural heritage. We are obligated to give our national parks an extra measure of respect and the highest quality of stewardship. We owe it to future generations to take the best possible care of the Smokies.
