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Resource protection? All it takes is a pencil
Resource Agencies are currently "re-evaluating" the proposed New River Parkway after a public outcry occurred when the Department of Highways changed their 13 years of promises to the property owners on New River Road (WV) and announced the WVDOT would take all the land along the route (and give it to the National Park Service!).
Those same "resource agencies", (one of which is the largest land owner in the area--the National Park Service) have, in my opinion, shown little concern for the environment, the people of West Virginia, the culture/history of the area and reflect that lack of concern best in the comments they repeatedly made in a 1998 Pre-Draft EIS on the project.
For example: The USDOI-NPS comments on the 1998 parkway plan tells the project framers how to word the impact statement, giving little concern, I feel, to the actuality of the adverse impacts along the project route! On and on throughout the agency "comment" report, one finds the United Stated Department of Interior's (USDOI) National Park Service (NPS) comments on the project full of recommendations to "CHANGE THE WORDING," "DELETE THE TEXT," "SUGGEST LANGUAGE WHICH SAYS," "STATE THAT DEICING COMPOUNDS WILL NOT BE USED," "REVISE THE FIRST STATEMENT," "STATE THAT HERBICIDES WILL NOT BE USED", etc.
Taking a pencil to "change the text" of an environmental impact statement does little to protect the New River in actuality and making the wording meet the requirements is obviously a means only to justify the end: taking all the land from the road to the river and all the land from the road to the toe of the mountain from "Almost Heaven, West Virginia" private property owners then handing that valuable land over to that same resource agency-the USDOI-NPS!
Now we, the private property owners along New River Road, are still "awaiting the ax" and forced to "await the outcome of more agency comments". We, the private property owners, have also been refused a copy of a draft of the final environmental impact statement by the West Virginia Deparment of Transportation (WVDOT) and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA)......citing WVDOT's excuse that "it might upset the public" and that the draft " is subject to change". One is forced to ask: WHAT ARE THEY HIDING, HAVE THEY RUN OUT OF ERASERS ON THEIR PENCILS AND WHAT HAPPENED TO FREEDOM OF INFORMATION IN THIS STATE AND COUNTRY?
This suggests that it has been a land grab scheme all along and the concern for protection of the New River is secondary to NPS' desire to have all the land! (I, also, suggest the NPS has "led" the WVDOT purposely towards that quest) Wake up West Virginia, someone wants your gorgeous resources and your peoples off them! "Changing the wording" stands only to accomplish that land-grab goal, and without regard or concern for the natural resources of the New River!
Article Provided By: Jo Ann Roach
