The Far Blue Mountains

At election time, tallying how we care for our corner of world By TOM BENNETT Tuesday, September 2, 2008 8:06 PM CDT     We have many of the natural wonders Americans see in their minds as they try to choose a leader who, among other things, will best protect the environment. Are there snapshots, so to speak, that we can take of our area to measure progress here?  Here are a few as space permits.

    • It’s appalling to think of a Savannah, Ga.-to-Knoxville, Tenn., interstate crossing this watershed and national forest, in order to skirt west of the Nantahala Gorge and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. But the U.S. House sponsor of that notion is dead, and its Senate sponsor has retired. In his State of the Union address Jan. 28, President Bush asked Congress to stop slipping earmarks into spending bills in committee. He received a standing ovation. On the campaign trail, John McCain and Barack Obama express only contempt for earmarks.

    • When sometime this century Cherokee County adopts land-use planning, the technology already will be in place. We have state-of-the-art, high-resolution Laser Detection and Ranging altimetry. It knows our steep slopes, tall peaks and dangerous homes in flood plains. So it must cost a fortune to get a LIDAR image of your parcel, right? No, it doesn’t.       “When you’re helping yourself, it’s a dime, and if we print it for you from GIS, it’s 25 cents,” said Deborah Weatherly, Cherokee County’s Geographic Information System administrator.

    • Cherokee County’s beauty increases.

    “The re-paving and widening of N.C. 294 Hiwassee Dam Road will eliminate one of its three open Dumpster sites,” said Wanda Casey, the county’s recycling coordinator and solid waste enforcement officer. “That leaves two open Dumpster sites on Hiwassee Dam Road. There are five in the Hanging Dog/Beaverdam community,”

    For my part, I’m surprised we don’t provide county government enough revenue for it to staff, fence and begin recycling at these last seven unsupervised and unsightly places. They’re along the way to some of the real estate for sale that persons here hope will be their economic salvation.

    • Meanwhile, on Cherokee County’s zany, deadly secondary roads, traffic near-collisions occur constantly. Mobile homes and vehicles rest feet from roadbeds. Embankments are improperly graded. (Mobile cell-phoning and text-messaging cannot help.) I asked the N.C. Department of Transportation, how many miles are there of unpurchased right of way here? “For the vast majority of secondary miles in Cherokee County, right-of-way easements have not been purchased,” a spokesperson replied.

    • Water quality suffers as cattle and horses break down stream banks. Fecal coliform bacteria levels rise steadily. I asked the N.C. Soil Conservation Program, how many miles of unfenced streams are there in Cherokee County pastures?

    “I really do not have any way of knowing,” Michael Stiles replied. “I don’t think anyone does.”

    • This is the 25th year of North Carolina’s 1983 Mountain Ridge Protection Act. It was weakened at the last minute to limit its protection to 3,000 feet and above. Although its 2,876 words were meant to bring reform, all anyone remembers is the ninth paragraph, which guts it.

    This law conditions public officials to dismiss heights of 2,999 feet or less as not being mountains.

    Tom Bennett of Martins Creek is a retired newsman. This column about Cherokee County’s environment – its mountains, rivers, creeks and air – will be published every two weeks.

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