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We need a parkway plan that is good for everyone concerned. The government claims that projects such as these are for the good of all. Really, what they mean is the for the good of the few: rich land developers, government consultants, and fat cat special interests and career bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. and Charleston.
There are many other examples out there of the government preying on "the little people." One of the best examples is the development of the Cuyahoga Valley National Recreation Area outside of Cleveland in the late 70's and early 80's. When the National Park Service announced its acquisition and plans for a park in this rural valley, property owners, (families, farmers, small business people) were led to believe they would be allowed to stay. In the end the only landowners allowed to stay were Congressman, Newspapermen, and other influential landowners in the valley. Almost all the other residents were eliminated with many of the homes burned and razed. By the time the Park service was done preserving the valley, 600-700 homes had been destroyed and five communities decimated.
Sound like fiction? It's true. This tragic example of government waste and abuse was documented in a PBS Documentary by Jessica Savage called "For the Good of All."
This is not an isolated case! The plight of the People of the Columbia River Gorge is very similar example of why we must question what is being done in the New River Valley and why we need your help to turn the tide in our favor, now. Other examples are shown below as well.
MORE! A similar thing happened in the 1960s in Tennessee/Kentucky during the building of the Land between the Lakes Recreational Area. The federal government moved residents, demolished their homes, and business. Not even places of worship were allowed to remain, save one which the government forgot about. The Land Between the Lakes Recreation Area is an inland Peninsula in western Kentucky and Tennessee that was formed when the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers were impounded to form Kentucky Lake, and Lake Bartlett. The purpose for removing these people from their homes: RECREATION. 1
If you support the current parkway plan, you also must believe it is good to deceive people, destroy peoples' lives, livelihoods, and homes, erode the property tax base, and pollute the environment with more sewage and smog! That's exactly what the current parkway plan promotes, under the auspices of being "For the Good of All."
STRONG ARM TACTICS: HARASSMENT
AND ABUSE
Part of the reason we are scared of what the government proposes to do is their track record for strong arm tactics, distorting reality, and using outlandish tactics to mistreat people who are "inholders" surrounded by public lands. Some examples:
STILL MORE (posted 12/29/2001):
Review a paper about the land holders of the Buffalo River to find yet another example of government excesses, abuses, and strong-arm tactics with private land-owners and the long-term negative effects on the area.
AND MORE (posted 6/19/2002):
Redwood National Park has operated in a very similar fashion with Orick, CA (coast of Northern California).
Portand, Oregon too!
AND MORE (posted 11/11/2002):
Private land owners are being forced off their land by a variety of coercive land-use policies, being imposed under the banner of "Everglades Restoration." See information about it it at Sawgrass Rebellion.
AND MORE (posted 7/31/2003):
Park Service Rewrites History.
OTHER EXAMPLES TO CONSIDER...
"Improvements" made by the National Park Service near Brooks Falls.
Are these portable toilets part of the plan for a scenic view?
Why did the National Park Service stop overnight camping at Sandstone Falls, corralling campers instead into this mosquito infested preferred "wetland" North of Brooks Falls on New River Road. Read more on this place here.
Has irresponsible forest management out west has exacerbated many fire disasters?
How about the U.S. Forestry Service worker who started a the "Hayman
Fire" in Colorado in June 2002 that burned over 136,000 acres? Or
the raging infernos like the one pictured on the right in Montana in
2000. These federal land management policies and their
representatives were supposedly put in place to help preserve our national forest lands and wildlife that the government claims must be protected from man.
Remember, it was also government decision to start the fire that burned many homes in the town of Los Alamos, New Mexico in 2000, in the name of forest management of course.
While certainly, the government is not responsible for starting every forest fire, its land management practices and spread thin-too-thin fire fighting resources seem only to make matters worse.
Photo courtesy of Rose Comstock
On a more fundamental level, the trail of Broken Promises we have endured is not unlike that which has happened before in America.
1 Herald-Dispatch, Huntington, WV January 27, 2001, page 6C. From Associated Press Article by Kimberly Hefling.
