NC Wildlife Federation is working to protect important wildlife and habitat in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park

 

The Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) has been released for the North Shore Road proposal in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP).  The National Park Service has been studying a plan to build a 38-mile road with an estimated cost of  $590 million that will rip an enormous scar across a wild and remote part of the GSMNP.  The result will be extensive and permanent environmental damage including habitat loss for such wildlife as neotropical migratory birds, which are heavily dependent on the closed canopy forest that the park provides.  The proposed construction area also contains pyritic rock that when disturbed and exposed to air and water, produces sulfuric acid.  This acid can sterilize the 141 streams and watercourses the road will cross, risking one of the richest trout fishing areas in the southeast.

 

The North Carolina Wildlife Federation has been working to prevent any wildlife habitat loss in the park by supporting a settlement for Swain County (to read a NCWF resolution on this issue click here), which the Swain County Commissioners publicly support in lieu of building a road.  The monitory settlement for Swain County is estimated at $52 million compared to the cost of  $590 million for road construction.

 

The National Park Service provided no preferred alternative in the DEIS but is conducting several public hearings to collect opinions from the community. You can find a copy of the DEIS online at: http://www.northshoreroad.info/documents.htm. These are the choices for consideration:

 

·        Build a gravel road for $335 million onto the existing road.

·        Build an eight-mile road onto the existing road to a new dock and picnic area for about $100 million.

·        Build a $14 million picnic area at the end of the existing "road to nowhere" halted in the 1970s.

·        Pay Swain County $52 million and build nothing, the environmental preferred alternative!!!!!!

 

The National Park Service has set March 20, 2006 as the end of the public comment period on the project.  Below is a list of the public hearing schedule. All meetings will begin at 4:30:

·        February 2 at Swain County High School in Bryson City, NC;

·        February 6 at Robbinsville High School in Robbinsville, NC;

·        February 7 at Asheville Renaissance Hotel in Asheville, NC;

·        February 9 at Knoxville Marriott Hotel in Knoxville, TN;

·        February 13 at Gatlinburg-Pittman High School in Gatlinburg, TN.

 

Comments on the DEIS will be considered in the selection of the Preferred Alternative and will be addressed in the Final EIS. Following the release of the FEIS, the Record of Decision (ROD) will be developed.

 

Mail Comments to:
North Shore Road Project
Great Smoky Mountains National Park
P.O. Box 30185 Raleigh, NC 27622

E-mail Comments to:

northshoreroad@arcadis-us.com  with the subject line referencing the " North Shore Road EIS Project."