ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, May 18, 1996 TAG: 9605200037
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG
SOURCE: ELISSA MILENKY STAFF WRITER
Environmental groups opposed to the proposed "smart" highway on Friday publicly rebuked the Virginia Department of Transportation's recent reapplication to obtain land in a Montgomery County conservation zone critical to the project's future.
Representatives from three organizations - the Sierra Club's local chapter, the New River Valley Environmental Coalition and the New River Greens - presented a 22-page rebuttal to a report released by VDOT two weeks ago.
VDOT's report, which answers 92 questions about the road project, will play a key role in whether the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors will allow the Transportation Department to take the land out of a protected zone in the Ellett Valley to build the smart highway.
The central theme of the environmental groups' rebuttal is that VDOT marginalized the two major legal issues the Board of Supervisors must consider.
They are: the effect upon the preservation and enhancement of agriculture and forestry and the necessity of the proposed action to "provide service to the public in the most economical and practical manner."
"We fail to see how the board could make a positive finding in either of these cases," said Richard Roth, president of the environmental coalition. "Running an interstate highway down the middle of an agricultural and forestal district is going to be unfavorable to the policy of protecting and conserving it."
The Board of Supervisors voted against VDOT's request to take the land in November by a 4-3 margin but rescinded that vote a week later to obtain more information about the project. VDOT was asked a month later to answer a list of 92 questions and then reapply with the county to take the land.
Now that VDOT has officially reapplied, the environmental groups contend that answers to the questions - contained in a 63-page document - are incomplete and "full of omissions, gaps and assertions that contain no factual backing."
In particular, the groups dispute several of VDOT's answers regarding the road's effect on the environment. That's not a surprising conclusion since the same organizations filed a federal lawsuit charging that transportation officials did not adequately complete an environmental assessment. That lawsuit is pending.
They also say VDOT's promises to mitigate problems such as drainage are not legally enforceable and the groups question whether the entire road, estimated to cost $103 million, ever will be funded - to date $6 million has been allocated and another $24.9 million is planned for allocation, VDOT's report said.
"It should have been a 200-page document to answer those questions in full," said Thomas Linzey, head of the Pennsylvania-based Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund. The nonprofit organization, which prepared the report, is helping the local groups with the lawsuit.
He added the answers were kept short and general because of the lawsuit - a charge that VDOT denies.
VDOT spokeswoman Laura Bullock, who had not seen the environmental groups' report, said the Transportation Department could have written volumes on each topic but wanted to keep the document easy to read and accessible.
An environmental impact statement, which the environmental groups charge is incomplete, was approved by the Federal Highway Administration in 1993.
"The one thing that we all need to remember is that the Board of Supervisors is looking at a land-use issue, it's not an environmental issue," said Bullock. "Certainly many of the questions [the board] asked of us were of an environmental nature. We feel totally confident in our answers and in the documents we have amassed over the years to answer those questions."
VDOT concluded in its own report that the smart road will not have an adverse effect on the conservation district. Only 31 acres of pasture would be removed from production and the future of timber management and harvests would be improved by reducing the hauling distance, according to the report, among other reasons.
Environmental groups dispute such statements, saying that 50 acres of pasture would be removed from production and that hauling distances for timber would not be significantly reduced.
The groups also seize upon VDOT's admission that a test bed for transportation technology could be built on Alternative 3A, another road project in Montgomery County that would relieve traffic congestion on U.S. 460 between Blacksburg and Christiansburg.
VDOT's report added, however, that a test bed on 3A would interfere with future widening of the road. The Commonwealth Transportation Board also would have to decide whether the $20 million cost of such a test bed would be appropriate without "concurrent transportation benefits," according to VDOT.
Roth said he was surprised by the admission, adding VDOT always has contended that a test bed could not be built on 3A.
In the two weeks since VDOT released the answers to the county's questions, intense lobbying efforts have been under way regarding the smart road, an approximately six-mile link between Blacksburg and Interstate 81 that is being promoted as a proving ground for transportation research and a way to boost Virginia Tech's fortunes.
A pro-smart road petition is making the rounds at local Chamber of Commerce luncheons, for example, along with invitations extended the the supervisors to meet with Ray Pethtel, Virginia Tech's transportation fellow and the most visible smart road proponent.
"Phone calls, letters, e-mail, what have I left out?" said Supervisor Jim Moore. "[It's] from both sides."
Representatives from the environmental groups delivered their report to supervisors on Thursday and held a press conference on Friday. Several members posed for cameras Friday in front of a table and metal shopping cart piled high with thousands of slips of paper, which represented the $103 million cost of the smart road. Each piece of paper - which group members emphasized was recycled paper - signified a $1,000 bill.
One group member began throwing the slips of paper - a symbol of wasted money.
"Now I've got some cleaning up to do," he said with a grin as the glare and flashes of the cameras subsided.
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