MOREHEAD, Kentucky, March 26, 2002 (ENS) - Interstate 66 exists only as a dashed line on the 2002 Official Kentucky State Map. But its route right through the middle of the Daniel Boone National Forest has been controversial in southern Kentucky ever since it was first proposed. Now citizens have banded together to oppose what looks like a done deal.

The Commonwealth of Kentucky, using Federal Highway Administration funds under the Transportation Equity Act of the 21st Century, is in the process of approving plans to build the interstate connector road that is being routed through the Daniel Boone National Forest near Morehead, Kentucky.

Local environmentalists, university professors and students, and business owners have formed the group Smart Progress in an effort to fight the road project.

The portion of Interstate 66 that is planned for Kentucky is also forms part of what is known as the Trans America Corridor. This cross-country transportation artery will start in San Diego, California, and terminate in the Hampton Roads/Norfolk, Virginia Area.

Interstate 66 has its designation written into law from Paducah to Pikeville in Kentucky. This future designation was authorized in the December 2001 Transportation Appropriations Bill for Fiscal Year 2002. $22.5 million was allocated to Interstate 66 in Fiscal Year 2002.

The purpose of routing Interstate 66 through southern Kentucky is to bring economic growth and development to a region that is economically depressed.

Creek at dawn in the Daniel Boone National Forest (Photo by Dave Robinson courtesy U.S. Forest Service)

But local business owner and Smart Progress member, Kim Rice, says "This road project violates every precept of good forest systems management. It also violates the U.S. Forest Service's own directives regarding sustainable forest systems and their stated goals regarding environmental, ecosystem, and habitat management and protection. This road isn't smart and certainly doesn't represent progress."

The Daniel Boone National Forest is one of the most heavily used forests in the South, with over five million visitors annually who come to backpack, camp, picnic, rock climb, boat, hunt, fish, ride and relax. The planned route for Interstate 66 is bisects the national forest.

According to the "Lexington Herald-Leader," the preferred route through the Daniel Boone National Forest is one of the longer and more expensive choices, but planners say the potential economic benefits made it the most attractive.

The alternatives vary in length from 38.6 miles to 48.4 miles, and their estimated costs are between $891 million and $1.11 billion.

On June 15, 1999, the southernmost Interstate 66 alignment between Somerset and London was recommended in a planning study. This linkage between the Cumberland and Daniel Boone Parkways would cost more than $1 billion and be built near Laurel River Lake in hopes of boosting tourism and development.

The suggested southern route would cost more than $100 million to design, nearly $690 million to build, and $210 million to purchase rights-of-way and moving lines for power, water, gas, and telephone.

The route, one of seven options compared in a $500,000 study by Wilbur Smith Associates, is 44.5 miles long. It would begin west of Somerset at the Cumberland Parkway, head north of Somerset, then south to Laurel River Lake and connect to the Daniel Boone Parkway southeast of London.

Victorian Square, Morehead, Kentucky (Photo courtesy Sherman, Carter, Barnhart Architects

This preferred route has the lowest per-mile cost, at $22.5 million, although it is the third most expensive overall.

Planners suggest it will take 20 years to build the connector between the two parkways, making 2019 the estimated completion date for this section of Interstate 66.

Smart Progress contends the road project will have an adverse impact on a host of plant, wildlife, and bird species in the forest protected under the Endangered Species and Wild Bird Conservation Acts, including Virginia Big-Eared and Indiana Bat populations, the Eastern Puma, and several varieties of plants native to the area.

Local opposition to the road project also centers on its potential for creating unplanned sprawl due to lack of local zoning laws, its origination as a result of real estate speculation rather than demonstrated need, and its escalating cost. Kentucky Governor Paul Patton envisions a highway that would travel along the spine of Appalachia, through his native Pike County. No single project could mean what this one would to Appalachia," Governor Patton said in 1999.

But the governor is also invested in a statewide Smart Growth policy backed up by a legislative package introduced late in January. “Perhaps our greatest opportunity for the 2002 legislative session is to improve our already good environment. Kentucky is still a beautiful, healthy and aesthetically pleasing place to live, work and raise a family,” he said. “And that can become one of our biggest assets. Our challenge is to keep it that way because today we’re losing our rural landscape at an alarming rate.”

Kentucky Governor Paul Patton (Photo courtesy Office of the Governor)

But Rice says Interstate 66 is the opposite of smart growth. "With protected forest land in the eastern U.S. disappearing at an alarming rate, this road project is not only an unacceptable, environmentally destructive use of increasingly scarce, publicly owned national forest land, but a real boondoggle for taxpayers," says Rice. "This project would build an unnecessary road at an irresponsibly high cost to taxpayers at a time when road funds, statewide and nationwide, are scarce."

"The idea that the future of America's national forests, and decisions regarding the use of national forest lands, should be left to any one state or commonwealth, let alone in the hands of one man, violates the very reason the National Forest system was created and all that it stands for," says Rice.

"The federal government's abdication of its responsibilities in allowing such decisions to be controlled and driven by state and local government officials and real estate speculators potentially motivated by personal, political, and financial gain works against the interests of all Americans," she says.

"Since the inception of this project in 1996, only two public meetings regarding it have been held," says Rice. While less than four percent of the local population attended those meetings, state government officials say that a majority of local citizens support building the interstate connector.

Smart Progress contends that the majority of citizens in this area were not even aware of this project until a March 2001 public meeting at which such advanced design plans were presented that the public was left with the impression that the project was inevitable.

"Smart Progress maintains that the Daniel Boone National Forest is just that - a national forest whose land belongs to all of the citizens of the U.S.," says Rice. "Decisions regarding its future should not be based solely on the whims of local politicians and real estate speculators with the power to pressure others and create the illusion that a majority of citizens support their plans."

The group holds that while local needs should be taken into consideration, the ultimate decisions regarding the use of national forest land must be made with the good of the entire nation in mind and with respect to their national and environmental significance as valuable ecosystems.

"Smart Progress intends to use every legal means at our disposal to fight this expensive, unnecessary destruction of valuable, important, treasured national forest land and invite like-minded groups and individuals to join us in that effort."

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2002. All rights reserved.