Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 11, 1995 TAG: 9502130019
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: STEPHEN FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
The committee, made up of 15 New River Valley and Roanoke-area citizens, is charged with making suggestions on the road's environmental aspects and overall design. The Virginia Department of Transportation will consider those suggestions before completing final designs on the road.
VDOT has proposed two routes for the six-mile highway that will stretch between Blacksburg and Interstate 81 through Montgomery County's Ellett Valley.
The northern route cuts through the 19th-century site of the Montgomery White Sulphur Springs resort, which served as a military hospital for Civil War wounded. It also would run across Den Hill Creek, and the narrowness of the valley means a 4,000-foot culvert along the length of the creek would have to be built. That would add millions of dollars in costs to the road and could have environmental implications on the Roanoke logperch, an endangered fish in the Roanoke River, which Den Hill Creek empties into.
"I'm just wondering what redeeming values the northern alignment has at all," said Tom Hanes, a Roanoke lawyer who made the successful motion to reject the alignment and was later named the committee's vice chairman.
But the group made clear that it had not endorsed the southern route, which would run in between several patches of the smooth coneflower, a federally recognized endangered species.
The group, which met Thursday for the second time, wants to wait until the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decides what indirect impact a nearby highway would have on the flora.
Chris VanCantfort, an environmental scientist from Radford, suggested the department further evaluate the possibility of another, more southern route, that department resident engineer Dan Brugh alluded to last month.
Thursday's meeting revealed more of the predispositions the group's members held toward the road.
I.B. Heinemann, a Roanoke hospital vice president, said he was more interested in taxes, interest rates and the road's $88 million price tag than the fate of a single coneflower. "If it's major, significant, then let's get to it. If it isn't, then let's get on with the road."
The group elected as its chairman Bill Richardson, an environmentalist who works for Virginia Tech's cooperative extension service. Before that vote, Jeff Douglas, a public relations official at Tech, questioned whether Richardson could set his biases against the road aside when administering his chairmanship duties. Richardson replied:
"If it's [the road] going to happen, and that's the premise of this committee, then let's do it right. That's where I'm coming from."
The committee's purpose is to suggest ways to improve the road, not debate whether it will be built, although one committee member came to Thursday's meeting ready to argue just that.
Justin Askins, a Radford University English professor who missed last month's initial meeting, introduced himself to the group and immediately launched into a tirade.
Askins criticized VDOT's environmental impact statement and said it did not include a "wholistic" review of the road's impact on Montgomery County.
"I'll be damned if you're going to build this highway and ruin the rest of the county," Askins said.
Later, Askins asked why the department is rushing the committee to finish its review. He said the environmental impact statement will have to be revised, thereby necessitating further review of the overall project.
A public hearing on the smart road is tentatively scheduled for July. "If we have everything ready we'll go to a hearing," Brugh said. "If we don't, we won't."
Said Askins: "That's all I'm asking for."
The group's next meeting is scheduled for March 9 at 7 p.m. in the Transportation Department's Christiansburg office.
by CNB