State parks in Tennessee are managed by a division of the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, which, under new Governor Bill Lee, has a new commissioner: David Salyers. This change of leadership presents an excellent opportunity to write a letter asking for a review of the plans for Rocky Fork before any construction begins and permanent changes to the landscape are made. The letter I sent appears below. Feel free to use it as an example and write your own letter asking for proper care of this treasured place. If you need a little more background, here are the issues in a nutshell:

The mission of Tennessee State Parks begins with preserving and protecting the natural, cultural, and historic resources of the state. This mission goes on to include recreational use, but the intent is clear that such use shall not threaten those natural resources. 

Tennessee state parks are highly developed with inns, conference centers, restaurants, RV campgrounds, golf courses, swimming pools, rental cabins, marinas, etc. Rocky Fork State Park was promoted from the start as a “primitive, minimally developed” park, and because it is a small portion of the much larger Rocky Fork tract—10,000 acres protected for public use in 2008 at a cost of $40 million—the state should be obligated to live up to the original plan and not overdevelop the park to the detriment of the surrounding public lands.

Plans presented for the first step in developing the park include a two-lane paved road up Flint Mountain with an auto bridge over Rocky Fork Creek, a campground on the mountain (which will not include RVs “at this time”) a large visitor center where the current parking lot is, and widening of Rocky Fork Road. The state does not appear to be following the primitive, minimally developed philosophy we heard about early on.