Displaying items by tag: nepa national environmental policy act

National Park Service via WBIR

Feds and boosters have considered trail network since completion of the “Missing Link”

WEARS VALLEY The National Park Service moved this week into the latest public-input phase regarding proposed construction of a Smokies-area mountain-biking destination on federal land near the current terminus of a recently completed section of Foothills Parkway that runs from Walland to Wears Valley.

The plan calls for miles of single-track mountain bike trails of varying skill levels and vendors catering to bicyclists. Park service documents indicate a rest station with picnic facilities, bathrooms and bicycle rental and repair facilities sited in Wears Cove southeast of the parkway terminus at Wears Cove. The parcel is already part of a federal easement for another extension of the parkway that would connect with the Gatlinburg Spur. 

“The Wears Valley portion of the Foothills Parkway could provide visitors new opportunities to experience the Park through mountain biking because it is within the Park’s general development zone and transportation management zone and is not managed as wilderness,” according to park service documents.

Conservation group weighs in on parkway proposals: NPCA urges full Environmental Impact Statement amid threat to Southern Appalachian habitats

 (An unedited version of this story was published in error. This is the final version.)

Proposed construction of an unfinished section of Foothills Parkway from Wears Valley to the Gatlinburg Spur would traverse 9.8 miles of natural beauty that is home to multiple protected species.

The project dates to 1944, when Congress mandated construction of a scenic 72-mile, slow-paced highway featuring panoramic views to run from Cocke County west to the Little Tennessee River. The parkway is complete from Tallassee, Tennessee to Wears Valley west of Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Plans call for the Foothills Parkway to skirt the entire Tennessee side of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park from one end to the other, as previously reported by Hellbender Press.

The National Park Service (NPS) encourages public input and is reading comments received during a recent public comment period that ended Oct. 31. The park service will announce a new round of public comments  this spring after publishing an initial draft of the project’s scope.

The National Parks Conservation Association, a nonprofit supporter and monitor of national parks across the country, has already stated its concerns about the proposed highway, which park service officials acknowledge hasn’t even been funded yet. Chief among its problems with the project is the lack of an Environmental Impact Statement.

“NPCA has been engaged on issues related to the Foothills Parkway since the 1990s. We are concerned that the National Park Service has not conducted a full Environmental Impact Study (EIS) for these proposed projects,” NPCA Senior Program Manager Jeffrey Hunter said in comments collected earlier this year regarding the project.

“The significant impacts of some of the proposed alternatives in the planning document demand further study and analysis before proceeding. Such further study would be best accomplished by a full EIS. Furthermore, these projects should not be looked at together outside the context of a full EIS,” Hunter wrote. The conservation organization also cited concerns about air and water quality, loss of mature forest and the diminishment of natural resources such as the Walker Sisters cabin near Metcalf Bottoms.

The project is a conceptualization from the early 1940s to relieve anticipated traffic on the Tennessee side of the park, which became an extended seven-decade affair. A short section of parkway between I-40 and Highway 321 near Cosby, at the eastern end, and a 33-mile stretch between Wears Valley and the Little Tennessee River at the western end, are finished.

Completion of 9.8-mile section 8D of the parkway would fill a major missing link to the only unfinished, congressionally mandated parkway left in the United States. The most likely route, depending on the outcome of environmental studies, will be to climb the north slope of Cove Mountain and then run along the long, narrow ridge of the mountain to Gatlinburg.

If approved, the challenge would be to construct the new section while limiting environmental damage associated with roads built through diverse natural habitats.