On a hot Sunday in August my wife and I walked the Appalachian Trail out of Stecoah Gap in Graham County to climb the 5,062-foot Cheoah Bald. All week the news had reported code-red ozone days for the higher elevations, and since this 11-mile round trip hike was particularly demanding, we thought we might have been better off breathing second-hand smoke somewhere while eating French fries.

The bald is situated in the center of a 7,000-acre roadless area, meaning that the road density on this large chunk of national forest land is less than a half mile per 1,000 acres. At one time the roadless area was much bigger. When the Forest Service’s first roadless inventory was completed in the 1970s, it was over 20,000 acres. Roadbuilding and logging in the area since that time has reduced it by two thirds.

However, as we struggled along that blistering day, our concern about the fragmentation of this large wild area by Forest Service roads was dwarfed by our contemplation of the past week’s news of the completion of the draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) for Corridor K. Corridor K is a 45-year-old highway project created as part of the newly formed Appalachian Regional Commission’s (ARC) transportation vision for Appalachia. The vision was a network of economic development highways that corresponded with the different letters of the alphabet, with Corridor K being a highway linking Asheville to Chattanooga. The commission’s intention was noble: take areas of Appalachia that lack interstate highway access, and that are lagging economically, and build highways to them that will create jobs, bring in more people and money, and turn them into viable modern communities.

The portion of Corridor K that the DEIS addresses is a 10-mile stretch of state highway 129 between Stecoah and Robbinsville. A half-mile tunnel would be blasted under Stecoah Gap, where the Appalachian Trail now crosses, to accommodate the new four-lane. The total cost of the 10-mile stretch will be $378 million. That’s almost $38 million a mile, or $47,000 per person in Graham County. And this is only the cost of the road from Stecoah to Robbinsville, with the estimated cost of completing the road from Robbinsville to Andrews being much higher. Given that Graham suffers from a poverty rate of almost 20 percent (compared to a state average of 13 percent) and has a median income of $27,000 (state average is $40,000), economic development in Graham County is important. But is spending $378 million of taxpayer money for the county’s economic development best served by building a four-lane highway that will move families out of its path, ruin miles of mountain streams, and destroy one of the most remote and scenic sections of the Appalachian Trail, along with an outstanding rural landscape?

I personally have no problem with my tax money being used to improve the economic opportunities of others, but perhaps alternatives should be considered. Graham County’s total budget is $12 million, or 3 percent of this outrageous amount. Let’s say Graham negotiated with the ARC, which is paying 80 percent of the cost, and in lieu of building the road the county accepted half of the $378 million to go toward economic development. I’m no economist, but for the sake of argument, let’s then say that Graham invests $20 million in some of the nation’s best economists and entrepreneurs to help Graham figure out the best way to invest the rest of the money. Perhaps it could be invested in attracting high-tech industries with high-paying jobs, in education, or in quality-of-life infrastructure, such as parks, transportation, and social services.

Regardless of the decision, it would be better than a new four-lane highway that no longer makes sense in a world where oil will only become scarcer and automobiles will soon be driven less. As we returned to Stecoah Gap, we could hear motorcycles screaming and trucks roaring down the existing highway long before we reached our car. If Corridor K becomes a reality, that sound will be much, much louder, and will be heard long before the point where we stopped to contemplate the solitude of that great, wild place. Everyone seemed to be driving faster than necessary, but we were tired and no longer felt like talking about it. It was unbearably hot, and we couldn’t wait to get back to our car and drive to the nearest convenience store for something cold to drink.

(Brent Martin lives in the Cowee Community in Macon County and works for The Wilderness Society in Franklin.)

Comment on Corridor K

Comments on Corridor K can be mailed by Tuesday, Oct. 14, to:

Mr. Gregory J. Thorpe, PhD, Environmental Management Director

Project Development and Environmental Analysis Branch

NC Department of Transportation

1548 Mail Service Center

Raleigh, NC 27699-1548

jgthorpe@ncdot.gov

Want to see the report for yourself? Go to http://www.stopi3.org/corridor_k.html.