In a fight that started in 1943 and lasted for over 65 years, a settlement has been reached…
BRYSON CITY, North Carolina, February 3, 2010 (ENS) – Congressman Heath Shuler, a North Carolina Democrat, has announced a settlement between the National Park Service, Swain County and others, bringing to a close the decades-long fight to stop a road through the wildest area of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
The park service will pay Swain County $52 million over 10 years, approximating today’s cost of a Swain County road that was flooded in 1944 when the Fontana Dam was completed, creating 29 mile-long Fontana Lake. The highest dam east of the Rockies, Fontana Dam across the Little Tennessee River was rushed to completion to provide electric power for the World War II effort and still provides energy for the Tennessee Valley.[1]
The agreement back in 1943 to replace Highway 288 with a new road along the north shore of Fontana Lake has been a contentious problem for years. The 1960′s try at building the replacement road into the Great Smokey Mountain National Park only made it seven miles. The abandoned project became known as the road to nowhere in the years since the ecologic problems with the road became evident.
The two sides of the fight have never agreed. The road was promised to the original land owners of the Smokey Mountains park to allow them to visit their old home sites and the burial grounds of their ancestors. These folks held out hope till the end that they would have there road. As the years have gone by though, hopes that the road would be built have faded. This agreement will be the final straw for those holding out hope.
The one good thing to come of this settlement is the protection of one of the last wild sections of the Park.
[1] Fight Over Roadbuilding in Great Smoky Mountains National Park Settled.
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