North Shore Road Call to Action

 

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Comment

For information about sending comments electronically visit:

http://www.northshoreroad.info/comments.htm

 

Or mail your comments to:

 

    North shore Road Project

    Great Smoky Mountains National Park

    P.O. Box 30185

    Raleigh, N.C. 27622

 

  Please send a copy of your letter or e-mail to your Congressman and Senators. Regular mail copies should be sent to the local office and not the Washington, D.C. office.

 

POINTS TO STRESS

 

1. Support the monetary settlement alternative. A monetary settlement with Swain County meets the needs and purposes of the study, avoids all adverse impacts to the Park, and NPS has determined that it is the least environmentally damaging practicable alternative and the environmentally preferred alternative. The monetary settlement is the only alternative that will satisfy the request of the Swain County Commissioners, the Bryson City Board of Aldermen and the Governor of North Carolina.

 

2. Oppose all construction alternatives, both the partial-build and the full build. The park service has determined that all construction alternative will have major, adverse impacts on the park resources.

 

3. Stress the major, adverse, permanent or long-term impacts that any construction would have on every resource that the park service examined. See the quotes above from the DEIS for specific examples to include in your comments.

 

4. Expose the giant boondoggle. The Park Service states that the cost of construction will be at least $590 million. That figure is equivalent to the annual budget short-fall of the entire national park system. On the other hand, the obligation of the Government could be settled with a payment of just $52 million, a huge savings to U.S. taxpayers.

 

5. The monetary settlement protects the park, immediately benefits the people of Swain County and saves U.S. taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. The $52 million settlement for Swain County invested at 5% would immediately provide $2.6 million per year for the county and have no adverse environmental impacts. On the other hand, after 15 years of road construction and squandering at least $590 million tax dollars, the park service says there will be only 223 new jobs.

 

6. The Appalachian Trail will suffer degradation from road construction. In addition, major portions of the Benton MacKaye Trail (BMT) within the Smokies would be obliterated. The newly created BMT is considered an alternate AT route.

 

7. Road construction will have major adverse impacts on the backcountry experience. The park will lose trails, backcountry campsites and the primitive hiking experience.

 

8. Road construction will cause the loss of potential wilderness in the park. Most of the lake shore area is currently managed as wilderness due to the high quality and remoteness of that part of the park. Both the road corridor and the strip between the road and the lake will be removed from wilderness consideration.

 

  9. Demand that NPS honor the 1916 Organic Act by leaving the Park resources: “unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.” The park service has determined that every resource will suffer major, adverse, long-term or permanent impacts as a result of any road construction.

 

10. Take the big view of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park as a whole, not ripped open by a 34-mile scar gouged across it, with habitat destroyed and fragmented.

 

Remember that Quality Counts.

Please copy your Congressional representatives on your coorespondence.

To find out who represents you, go to http://www.house.gov/ or http://www.senate.gov/.

Thanks for taking the time to get involved!