
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 4, 1992                   TAG: 9203040298
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

TECHNOCRATS HAVE TUNNEL VISION ON ROAD

REGARDING the state Transportation Board's unanimous vote to support a "smart road" for Blacksburg, I was appalled at Daniel Howes' article, "Robers earns his right to say `I told you so'" (Feb. 22). The article totally ignored the hundreds of signatures on petitions protesting the ecological violence such a project will wreak in Ellett Valley.

Instead of feeling "just a little bit smug about the whole thing," Robers and his power brokers should feel shame for promoting a project so destructive: not only to the natural landscape, but potentially to the people who dwell in the valley as well.

Robers is quoted as saying "I can remember when there were some non-believers." There are thousands of non-believers, but you have to look slightly beyond the tip of your technological nose to see where the non-belief lies. It has to do, not with radar and fiber optics, but with preservation of natural resources and maintaining purity in water tables.

Where there are roads, there are accidents, "smart" technology or not. When the first truck carrying oil or gasoline or Lord knows what kind of chemical solvents overturns on the "smart" highway and pollutes the water tables underlying the fragile Karst terrain, let's remember the names of these power brokers and Rep. Rick Boucher, and lay responsibility for this disaster directly at their doors.

If Pope is right and "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing," let's remember who promoted this technological turkey when we painfully come to realize the dangers tunnel-visioned technocrats can engender. KENT HOLLIDAY BLACKSBURG

by CNB