Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, November 7, 1994 TAG: 9411080001
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LIZA FIELD
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
``Wise men pierce this rotten diction.'' - George Orwell
THE WRITER George Orwell believed that corrupt language - empty jargon with no connection to anything on Earth - signified corrupt politics.
A mathematician might throw in corrupt numbers, a supply of which one may find in the quagmire of the U.S. 58 issue. Both the unreal words and unreal numbers describing this issue indicate a disjunction from reality itself: real life, real people, real place.
The upgrading of U.S. 58 is a save-Southwest Virginia project. Former Virginia Del. G.C. Jennings, in 1989, spearheaded legislation that would permit the building of an economy-boosting highway from Southwest to southeast Virginia, using state funds.
While case studies show that building a four-lane does not spur the economy or bring on development, a few political figures are eager to spend more than $1 billion on the highway.
The unhealthy economics of the plan, however, are only a sign of further ailments; these show up most clearly in the road's path from Abingdon to Hillsville.
Instead of the old 58 route here, or the more obvious, faster, already-built Interstates 81 and 77, the Commonwealth Transportation Board decided to route this four-lane through the most remote, pristine mountains in the state.
``Option 2A'' sends 58 traffic north on I-81 to Adwolfe, then wrenches it abruptly south again, through the middle of the Mount Rogers National Recreation Area. There, the four-lane must, at phenomenal cost, rearrange steep roller-coaster mountain grades, follow a wildlife/trout stream, destroy a national campground, pave over one mile of the Appalachian Trail and track six further trail miles. It will split the recreation area neatly in half with constant, high-speed traffic.
VDOT admits that this route has almost no public support. Only four of the 1,850 comments from VDOT's public survey favored the route. Most disturbingly to people from this area, VDOT held no public forum in the county affected (Smyth), so that news of its selection of the route shocked even the Smyth County Board of Supervisors and newspaper.
If the vocabulary of this study in ``transportation needs,'' ``constructability,'' ``public comments and reaction'' has little to do with reality, its numbers have even less.
The route will cost at least $160 million by old estimates, $500 million by new. It is projected to yield less than $7 million more in long-term economic potential than the no-build route.
That is, the state will drain itself of $200 million to $500 million to bring about a phantom yield of less than $7 million - for one section of road. Amazed county citizens have suggested the state simply invest its millions and cut a check, yearly, for each county resident.
This divorce from reality, meanwhile, degrades more than economics and the English language.
``The representatives planning this road wanted to gain money and political friends,'' said June Slemp of Smyth County. ``We who oppose it just live here; we have nothing to gain but our lives and our homes.''
The same might be said for thousands of residents in the area who have no vote and no voice. In the Mount Rogers National Recreation Area alone, 140 endangered, threatened and rare species live. Creatures who can't survive the mildest human developments thrive here amid steep mountain passes, wild pastures, pure air, creeks and high pinnacles. Here the black bear and bobcat can roam the great distances needed for their survival.
That a habitat vital to so many species is physically vital to humankind, science already has proven. But a visit to the Mount Rogers area will reveal a keener truth: its value to the life of the human spirit.
The mountains here (including Whitetop, Pine, Haw Orchard) comprise one of the last wild places one can roam for days without seeing traffic. Already 1 million worldwide visitors travel here annually seeking its wilderness, solitude and silence. Here, a person may wander mountains and woods without fearing assault or breathing car exhaust. She can lie on the ground at night and see thousands of stars, not headlights or the glow of development; he can sleep to the sounds of owl and wind, not trucks shrieking down a highway.
How rare and in demand such places will be in a century, we can only imagine. Even today, among other endangered species, the human heart has become desperate for their open air, freedom, beauty. The sobering fact is that no one can re-create such areas; development, once built, will never be dismantled.
These are only a few of the considerations missing from VDOT's ``very extensive, very detailed study of the environment'' of this place.
Perhaps that's because no actual environmental assessment ever happened, nor any field work in the real location.
This fact has spurred the U.S. Forest Service to take its own action. Like Smyth County, the Forest Service was never asked if it would like a four-lane; last month, it held a public-comment period to begin its own environmental assessment - a measure VDOT officials are calling "premature."
But in an age when our respect for a real place often comes too late to protect it, premature concern is perhaps right on time.
Liza Field of Wytheville has taught writing at Wytheville Community College.
by CNB