ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, December 21, 1996 TAG: 9612230069
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG
SOURCE: MARK CLOTHIER AND LISA APPLEGATE STAFF WRITERS
THE SUIT WAS prompted by a Virginia Tech memo requesting 72 40-foot snow-making towers to help in vehicle research.
Three New River Valley environmental groups filed suit Friday in U.S. District Court in Roanoke to force an additional environmental impact study of the "smart" road.
The suit was prompted by an August Virginia Tech memo, leaked to a smart road opponent in November, detailing a wish list of smart road features - including 72 40-foot snow-making towers that would use 175,000 gallons of water an hour. These features were not part of the road's original environmental impact study.
Dan Brugh, a resident engineer with the Virginia Department of Transportation, said the original impact statement did what it was supposed to do: look at the environmental impact of building a 6-mile road from southern Blacksburg to Interstate 81 through the rural Ellett Valley. The road would be used for vehicle research.
The snow-makers proposed by Virginia Tech's Center for Transportation Research would be used on a two-mile test bed portion of the road, studies on which could begin by late fall 1998.
Brugh said the impact of features like the snow-makers, to be used for all-weather testing, would be addressed when and if they decide to use them.
"The original impact statement can't specify everything that's going to be on the road," he said. "We said we would review anything we do to make sure it's in compliance with whatever standards there are, and that's what we fully intend to do."
An extra impact statement would cost about $20,000 and push the construction back three to six months from its expected July groundbreaking, Brugh said.
This is the second attempt by the Sierra Club, the New River Valley Environmental Coalition and the New River Greens to slow development of the smart road.
Both efforts focus on whether the environmental impact of a 6-mile road from southern Blacksburg to Interstate 81 through the rural Ellett Valley was properly studied.
In the first suit, environmentalists asked U.S. District Judge Jackson Kiser to include their expert's testimony on the sufficiency of the road's original impact statement.
The suit also claimed another impact study was needed because the road's path was changed.
Kiser refused the requests in October. An appeal is pending.
The suit filed Friday focuses on possible features, such as the snow-making towers and wide turn-around areas, proposed for the smart road's construction.
Sam Swindell, attorney for the environmentalists, said their new argument isn't much different from their first. The difference, he said, is more information.
"Which isn't our fault," he said. "All of this should have been open to public comment in the first place the whole policy behind the National Environmental Policy Act is making the impact open to public scrutiny, thereby giving the public a rational basis for commenting."
Swindell said the environmentalists' main goal is to force VDOT to open all plans to the public. Their efforts might slow the project, he said, but they likely won't stop it.
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