ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, July 26, 1996 TAG: 9607260035
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
After hearing of a similar program in North Carolina, Roanoke County Supervisor Lee Eddy has proposed forming a private fund-raising group to buy and protect land along the Blue Ridge Parkway.
The purpose would be to protect the road's scenic beauty.
Eddy's inspiration came after a presentation by Hugh Morton, chairman of North Carolina's Year of the Mountains Commission. Morton, of Linville, N.C., had been invited to speak at a meeting of the 5th Planning District Commission on what is being done to preserve the cultural and natural resources of the Carolina mountains that might be duplicated here.
The Year of the Mountains Commission was created last year by order of North Carolina Gov. James Hunt to assess the critical issues facing North Carolina's western mountain communities.
Rapid economic and population growth in Western North Carolina have created development and quality-of-life issues that are unique to the mountainous area, according to a commission document.
Morton, himself a developer, brought a slide show that made a dramatic visual statement about the effects of pollution and unbridled development on the mountains.
Among issues his group has addressed are lack of parkway maintenance; national forest clearcuts in full view of scenic overlooks; the absence of planning organizations in many North Carolina counties; air pollution that's killing trees in large numbers along the highest mountain peaks; and the piping of raw sewage into North Carolina's streams and rivers.
One thing that will make a difference, Morton said, is a new North Carolina ridge protection law that forbids the construction of structures taller than a three-story home on any mountain ridge rising 3,000 feet or more above sea level.
The thing that captured Eddy's imagination, however, is a program of Morton's commission called Preserver of the Blue Ridge Parkway. The program uses a priority list developed by the U.S. Park Service to buy land from willing sellers along the parkway at fair market value. Land most likely to be developed is targeted.
After hearing Morton, Jim Olin of Roanoke said he liked the land-purchase program and that maybe something like it could be tried in Virginia. Olin, former 6th District Congressman, is the state chairman of the Coalition for the Blue Ridge Parkway, a group of people from Virginia and North Carolina interested in preserving the parkway.
Olin cautioned that to apply the program along the parkway's entire length of over 400 miles would cost a tremendous amount of money.
Morton said that his commission was hoping to get $1 million a year for five years from the North Carolina Department of Transportation's share of federal Intermodal Surface Transportation Act funds to help with the preservation effort. Eddy said he would be favor spending federal money for such a plan in Virginia but said its not yet time to go to the state for it.
LENGTH: Medium: 58 linesby CNB