The National Park Service will announce its decision this fall. A final decision won’t come out until late 2006 or early 2007, but the final decision rarely deviates from the preliminary decision, according to park officials.

Smokies Superintendent Dale Ditmanson will give the first “yah” or “nay” on the road. His opinion will travel all the way up the chain of command to the Department of Interior Secretary Gale Norton — passing through the regional park director in Atlanta and the National Park Service Director Fran Manella along the way.

The decision could be reversed at any point in the hierarchy. Only Norton’s decision will be announced publicly come fall. According to Smokies officials, if Ditmanson’s or even Manella’s opinion is overturned by the upper echelon — by Norton, for example — the general public will never know that it wasn’t a consensus.

Yet another period of public comment will be allowed after the preliminary decision this fall.