Just giving everyone an update: You now have more time to make comments on the 10-year plan, details below.
This article appeared in yesterday’s Erwin Record. The deadline for submitting comments on Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation’s 10-year Statewide Parks, Recreation and Conservation Plan 2030—which includes state parks such as Rocky Fork—is tomorrow, Friday, Feb. 19.
While I can’t explain the short notice, we all still have time to review the document and submit comments. While this document goes into a wide range of issues, the management of state parks is included, buried within the material.
TDEC does not often give us such an opportunity to comment, so I hope folks will take advantage at this time to let your opinion be known to those who manage our parks.
The mission statement of Tennessee state parks reads in part “to protect and preserve the unique natural, cultural and historic resources of Tennessee.” The State Parks Act of 1937, which created the parks, reads in part “that every park under the provisions of this act shall be preserved in its natural condition, so far as to be consistent with its human use and safety, and all improvements shall be of such character as not to harm its inherent recreational values.”
The current development plans for Rocky Fork State Park are not consistent with these provisions and should be revised, with an abundance of public input, until they are. The following fact sheet was recently prepared by three conservation organizations to help raise awareness of the threat Rocky Fork faces. Please feel free to show it to friends or contacts who want or need to know more about what is going on. Feel free to email me if you cannot readily access the document or want a PDF or another format.
Other voices besides our own have begun to be raised and heard on the issue. We appreciate anything and everything you do to help Rocky Fork. Sharing information, even with a few people, goes a long way toward the overall goal of making everyone who loves this place aware of the situation. Thank you!
Last November, after three years of relative silence, the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation finally presented to the public their plans for the first stage of “improvements” in what was to be the “minimally developed” Rocky Fork State Park. Part of the plan is a 24-foot-wide, two-lane, paved road that begins with a bridge over Rocky Fork Creek and extends ¾ mile to a campground and scenic overlook on Flint Mountain.
The photo below shows the approximate route of the road, now estimated by TDOT to be a $23 million dollar project, designed so as to be able to accommodate RVs and 2,000 to 4,000 vehicles per day. Due to the rugged and steep terrain, extensive use of retaining walls, massive road cuts, and metal reinforcement bolted into rock on slopes above would be required, leaving an ugly scar on Rocky Fork. Also, take note of the fact that a future stage of this development would be to widen the existing Rocky Fork Road to similar standards, changing the “prettiest mile of road in Tennessee” forever.
If this isn’t what you want to see in Rocky Fork I suggest a letter to the new Commissioner of TDEC, David Slayers (David.Salyers@tn.gov) and/or the interim Deputy Commissioner of State Parks, Anne Marshall (Anne.Marshall@tn.gov), asking that these plans, developed by the previous administration, be re-visited and public input sought to arrive at a better plan that the public supports, before permanently damaging the natural beauty we worked so hard to protect.
In November, for the first time in three years, Tennessee State Parks staff came to Unicoi County and held a public meeting to discuss management of Rocky Fork State Park. State Park officials presented plans for a visitor center and an access road to a campground and a scenic overlook; these plans were presented in final form, only awaiting permits before construction would begin.
The
general feelings we heard from folks at the meeting included serious concerns
about environmental damage as a result of the implementation of these plans,
and discontent about the plans not being influenced at all by public
input. Evidence available seems to
indicate that state parks staff are not very interested in the public’s opinion
or input, but rather are simply satisfying a requirement to hold a public
meeting and accept comments.
The
public was invited to submit comments for the following 30 days. Later, I
personally requested, twice, to review all comments submitted and did not
receive a response, but, after the recent removal of Deputy Commissioner Brock
Hill, asked again and did receive an incomplete collection of comments.
The
comments are public information and are excerpted here for you to see what others
think about the state’s plans, without identifying who provided each one. Roughly
60 comments vehemently oppose the plans presented with only two in favor. Contact
us if you would like the unabridged versions.
Notably
absent from the information provided by state parks were the comments submitted
by a number of conservation organizations, all of whom opposed moving forward
with the plans presented, including Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy,
Tennessee Citizens for Wilderness Planning, The Sierra Club, The Wilderness
Society, MountainTrue, and Wild South. A number of our friends’ comments were
also missing (we add some here) but it is clear that the public is
overwhelmingly opposed to the plans presented.
With this evidence that the public does not approve of the state’s plans, and the lack of public input to help shape those plans, we hope the new leaders will re-visit the issue before the heavy equipment moves in and changes Rocky Fork forever. We encourage you to send your letter to that effect to the new Commissioner of TDEC, David Salyers, Commissioner, Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation and the acting Deputy Commissioner of State Parks, Anne Marshall (both at 312 Rosa L. Parks Avenue, Nashville, TN 37243). Letters to political leaders would be helpful as well including Governor Bill Lee, Senator Lamar Alexander, Congressman Phil Roe, and State Representative Rusty Crowe.
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.
A few years ago I had never used a computer, sent an email, or
been on the internet—and certainly never expected to have a blog.
For years I had lived off-grid in the woods, spending most
of my time backpacking all over the mountains—12,000 miles in all. Considering
all the places I had hiked, I set down roots in the best place I had found; the
mountains along the Tennessee–North Carolina border, just a little ways north
of the Smokies in Flag Pond, TN.
I chose this spot carefully due to the large amount of
protected land with only one missing piece: the 10,000-acre Rocky Fork tract.
It was soon to be acquired by the government, completing a huge swath of
protected land that would now be my backyard. I quickly purchased property
within walking distance of the tract and built a little homestead.
Four years ago, a lovely new wife joined me in the off-grid
cabin—bringing with her electricity, computers and the internet. That and the
realization that protecting a special place would require continuous diligence
ended my laid back, never-been-on-the-internet, just-grow-my-garden-and-hike-in-the-woods
lifestyle.
Rocky Fork has a great deal of interesting natural and cultural history to be explored, but finding information about it all can be a challenge. And so I have started a blog, the Rocky Fork Journal, to help others learn more about my chosen backyard—the wild, remote, unspoiled Rocky Fork watershed.
Rocky Fork Creek by Joye Ardyn Durham
Please check out the journal. It’s a work in progress and I welcome your feedback. Feel free to forward this to others who may be interested.
Rocky Fork Journal 