NTHP warns officials in Bowling Green, KY, that the 4,000 acre
industrial park they are building north of town is in trouble.
Hello everybody,
For about 7 years now, a handful of citizens of Warren County, Kentucky
have been fighting alone against a powerful county, state, and federal
machine, trying to force examination of the suitedness of their rural
agricultural area for development of a huge intermodal industrial
complex, marketed by the quasi-public development authority to serve the
automotive industry. No one has listened, and the citizens have been
unable to get publicity or help for their cause.
Senator Mitch McConnel, US Rep Hal Rogers, and others have kept a steady
supply of money in the multiple millions of dollars flowing to the
developers for salaries, land purchases, road and utility upgrades, and
tax abatements for industries locating in the area. Over the last four
years, one by one, federal agencies whose employees intially raised
concerns about the project have faded into the background as proponents
pushed ahead with what citizens and agencies alike have said are flawed
and incomplete studies of the environmental and human impacts of the
massive project.
The area slated for development contains intact farmsteads and small
communities dating to the earliest days of european settlement, and also
remains of prehistoric settlements as yet unnumbered, in and around the
numerous sinkholes and caves located in the Sinkhole Plain around
Mammoth Cave National Park. These karst features were the only sources
of water in a vast virtually treeless barren of rich habitat, and were
the focus of both human and animal activities for that reason.
Since actively beginning construction in November of 2003, the
Intermodal Transportation Authority, an agency of the Warren County
Fiscal Court, has developed or disturbed over 600 acres, and in the
process has "repaired", or excavated and back-filled, at least 8 large
sinks that we know of, without any indepth examination of the subsurface
for historic or archaeological remains. The ITA has also purchased and
demolished a number of structures. While internal development continues,
interstate connector projects are now getting underway.
Citizens have repeatedly asked for assistance from state and federal
agencies, but as various comment deadlines have come and gone, the
agencies have ignored the actions of the ITA. An environmental impact
study was promised by developers, and then dropped. The SHPO declined to
review or comment on project plans despite a letter from a director of
the Smithsonian Institution to the ITA director in 2001, advising of the
likelihood of historic and prehistoric sites within the project's
boundaries.
From time to time I have reported to BP about this project, and asked
this august group for advice on how to proceed in the face of the
steamrollers the developers have assembled. FINALLY, one of the groups
we contacted has stepped in with some strong words. The earthmovers are
still out there working, today, Sunday December 5th (yes, after
receiving the first warning letter from an environmental attorney in May
of this year, the developers began working 7 days a week to install the
interior roads and utility upgrades.
Maybe there is a God, after all. We'll see; the backpedalling and
denials have already begun, but the small band of citizens is now trying
to figure out how to come up with the (perhaps hundreds of) thousands of
dollars that will be needed to move to the next steps. Read all about it
here:
http://www.bgdailynews.com/articles/stories/public/200412/05/0eGg_top-news.html
best to all from deb
--
To terminate puerile preservation prattling among pals and the
uncoffee-ed, or to change your settings, go to:
<http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/bullamanka-pinheads.html>
|
