North Shore Road Controversy
The construction of Fontana Dam led to the flooding of most of North Carolina Highway 288, which connected Deals Gap and Bryson City. The National Park Service, after gaining possession of Fontana's north shore tracts, reached an agreement with Swain County to replace the north shore road in the 1940s. By 1972, however, environmental concerns and funding issues had continuously stalled construction, and just 7.2 miles (11.6 km) of the road had been completed (just outside of Bryson City). In the 1970s, environmental concerns completely halted the road's progress, and locals nicknamed the unfinished 7.2-mile (11.6 km) road "The Road to Nowhere". After North Carolina's U.S. Senator Jesse Helms secured funding for the road in 2000, the park service conducted an environmental impact study (released in 2007) and concluded that the road's construction would cause "major, adverse, long-term impacts to topography, geology, and soils" in the area. Proponents of the road argued that the environmental concerns were exaggerated. In 2007, Swain County accepted a $52 million cash settlement from the park service, and agreed to drop its demand for a new road along the North Shore.
Read more about this topic: Fontana Dam
Famous quotes containing the words north, shore, road and/or controversy:
“The battle of the North Atlantic is a grim business, and it isn’t going to be won by charm and personality.”
—Edmund H. North, British screenwriter, and Lewis Gilbert. First Sea Lord (Laurence Naismith)
“It’s so lonely here. Like we were the only two people left in the whole world. Maybe we are. Maybe when we get back to shore everybody else will have disappeared. I’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
—Michael Wilson (1914–1978)
“The road became a channel running flocks
Of glossy birds like ripples over rocks.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Ours was a highly activist administration, with a lot of controversy involved ... but I’m not sure that it would be inconsistent with my own political nature to do it differently if I had it to do all over again.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)