Residents of far Western North Carolina have launched the beginnings of what organizers say will be a massive fight to defeat a proposed new interstate through the mountains — one that would bisect Clay, Cherokee, Graham and possibly Macon counties en route from Savannah to Knoxville.

The interstate was proposed by Georgia’s congressmen as a way to improve commerce of their state and relieve congestion in Atlanta by allowing cross-country interstate traffic to bypass the metro area.

“The people in Atlanta are trying to take some of their sprawl and growth and kick it up on us,” said Buzz Williams, director of the Chattooga Conservancy, a conservation group for the Chattooga River watershed. “We are going to organize people and we are going to stop it. We’re going to take this to the mat.”

Word of the interstate trickled up from North Georgia a few weeks ago following an anti-interstate rally in Hiawassee — a small North Georgia town. Five hundred members of a politically active homeowners’ association in Hiawassee turned out to oppose the interstate and began planning to divert it from their area.

Western North Carolina residents quickly realized unless they took action, too, opposition in North Georgia could shift the interstate even deeper into this neck of woods.

“We are afraid that this thing is going to take the path of least resistance — whoever makes the most noise doesn’t get it,” Williams said. “We are desperately trying to form a coalition with other groups to have a common strategy, which is ‘We don’t need it. We don’t want it. It’s not going anywhere. And we’re sticking together.’”

About 20 Hayesville residents-turned-activists gathered for a strategy meeting at Hayesville Water Gardens last Wednesday, where owner Joe Stephens denounced the major selling point for the interstate — economic development.

“The entire concept of the interstate struck me as stupid for the mountains,” Stephens said. “To me the best idea for this area is to protect what it’s got going for it, which is beautiful mountain valleys. You don’t destroy your main asset to bring economic prosperity. Besides, fast food restaurants aren’t economic prosperity. That’s minimum wage.”
But proponents of the interstate say that 80 percent of jobs in the nation are located within 10 miles of an interstate.

Jan Unger, president of Zickgraf Enterprises with operations in Macon and Swain counties, said that an interstate would improve business and industry in the region.

“It would be a tremendous asset,” Unger said. “I think any interstate that would come through any region would be a benefit.”

Numerous corporations have come out in favor of the interstate, from Home Depot to Goody’s Family Clothing, which is based in Knoxville.

Economic development was the main impetus behind Interstate 26 through Madison County. It, too, was controversial, but has been a positive economic force since opening two years ago, according to N.C. Rep. Ray Rapp, D-Mars Hill.

Conrad Burrell, the representative for this region of Western North Carolina on the NC Board of Transportation and a Jackson County commissioner, said there is a correlation between roads and economic development.

“People have different ideas of road building and whether we need a road or not. But if they decide to build it, it would definitely open up this end of the state economically,” Burrell said.
But not all economic development is good, said Aurelia Stone, a Hayesville resident and chairwoman of the Tusquitee chapter of WNC Alliance environmental advocacy group.

“I think it is opening our area up to more summer home development, more low-paying jobs in industries like hotels and gas stations,” Stone said.

Stone, a health care worker, moved to the region in 1990 after urban sprawl encroached on her farm outside Augusta, Ga.

“All the farms around us got sold for development. We’ve moved two times since coming here for the same reason,” Stone said. The remaining slice of rural landscape will be further jeopardized by an interstate with a promulgation of feeder roads and interchanges cropping up along it, Stone said.

John Clarke, a raspberry farmer and builder in Hayesville, said the interstate would ruin the region’s best asset and actually hurt economic development.

“Economic development here is based on natural beauty, not interstates,” Clarke said.
Clarke said everyone should have a vested interest in defeating the interstate — hunters and hikers, fishermen and kayakers, newcomers who came here to escape traffic noise and old-timers who could lose their family farms to right-of-way acquisition, motorcyclists who could lose the infamous Tail of the Dragon ride and boaters who could lose tranquility on both Chattooga and Santeetlah lakes.

Where it all started

The idea for a new interstate across Georgia has been talked about for years but was officially proposed for the first time in summer 2004. A stand-alone bill calling for a feasibility study was introduced in both the House and Senate and gained support from most of Georgia’s congressional delegation. The interstate was called I-3 in honor of the Third Infantry Division that is based in Georgia.

But in typical Washington form, it didn’t make it out of committee. So a new strategy was deployed this year. The Georgia delegation inserted a line item into the massive Transportation Bill — $400,000 to study an I-3 corridor. The strategy worked.

U.S. Rep. Charlie Norwood, a Republican who represents 23 counties in northeastern Georgia, is the main driver behind I-3.

“One of the main things we are looking for is congestion improvement,” said John Stone, aide to Norwood.

Relieving congestion in Atlanta will improve air quality in the mountains, he said.

“Atlanta is absolutely bogged down in dead stopped traffic for hours every day in the morning and afternoon. That leads to maximum possible air pollution,” Stone said. Stone said that pollution floats up to the mountains where it hangs on the Smokies and contributes to bad ozone and smog.

But some question whether thru-traffic — which would be removed from Atlanta’s congestion equation with I-3 — is the real problem.

“Peak hour traffic is the problem, and that’s locals,” said D.J. Gerken, an attorney out of Asheville who works for the Southern Environmental Law Center.

Helping Atlanta

Opponents to the Interstate fear opposition in the rural mountain communities will be no match for the political clout of Atlanta, and the entire state of Georgia for that matter.
An article in the Atlanta Business Journal on June 24 stated that I-3 is “gaining headway at the state and national level.”

Supporters quoted in the article gushing over the idea of I-3 included Georgia’s Transportation Commissioner and a spokesperson for the Georgia Ports Authority, who called I-3 an “imperative” transportation link for the port of Savannah.

Both of Georgia’s U.S. senators and most of its U.S. representatives are behind it. The Georgia state legislature appears equally gung-ho. They are devoting $100,000 of state money to establish the Interstate Highway Development Association to promote the new interstate.

Despite the stacked odds on the surface — the state of Georgia versus a small group of residents meeting at a garden center in Hayesville, a town with just two stop lights — some claim help will pour in from outside the region to defeat the road.

“This is a national issue,” said Buzz Williams, director of the Chattooga Conservancy, a conservation group that works to safeguard the Chattooga River and its watershed.

Williams said the appeal to surrounding regions will be easy: “Help us stop this thing or you are going to ruin the place where you can come for recreation,” Williams said.

Striking early

Stone urged concerned residents to sit tight and wait for the feasibility study to be completed. The project could be killed or could end up taking an entirely different route, he said.

But Joe Gatins, a Clayton resident who lives just over the Macon County border, reckons the more momentum the project gains, the harder it gets to stop it.

“I don’t think it is a fait accompli yet, but it is getting very close, and if we don’t get it stopped now it will become a fait accompli,” Gatins said.

Gerken, the attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center, agrees. He has spent the past week deciphering the technical ropes of interstate feasibility studies in hopes of influencing the process early. But the guidelines are vague, he said.

They call for a steering committee to be appointed right away and require public comment as part of the study, but “when you get down to the nuts and bolts of who is going to be on the steering committee and who appoints them, and where the public hearings will be held, that’s just not knowable right now,” Gerken said.

Gerken uncovered one guiding mandate for Interstate feasibility studies.

“You’re supposed to look at the problems first and kill it early if it doesn’t look like it is going to work and not spend the full $400,000,” Gerken said. That mandate could put the route through mountains — clearly the biggest problem area — at the front end of the feasibility study.

The U.S. Department of Transportation will likely ask the N.C. DOT for advice when examining potential routes. According to Burrell, who sits on the state Transportation Board, building an interstate through the region is possible.

“I am sure it is possible to do. I don’t know whether it would be feasible or not. I guess that’s why they are doing a feasibility study,” Burrell said.

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