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Ocmulgee National Monument, Macon County, Georgia
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Update: 2001 12 October
Hi, Everyone,
When did they start calling the Eisenhower Parkway Extension - the Fall Line Freeway again?
See page http://www.hollidaydental.com/epe/ for links to info on the project.
- Lindsay
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Fall Line Freeway backers seek environmental compromise
Group wants to meet with opponents to talk about possible options
http://www.macontelegraph.com/content/macon/2001/10/11/local/fallline_1011_ho.htm
By Christopher Schwarzen
Telegraph Staff Writer
Macon business leaders pushing to connect the Fall Line Freeway want to meet with environmentalists opposed to the project and work toward a compromise.
Several business leaders said Wednesday they were interested in discussing routes for the Fall Line Freeway that would include preservation and conservation measures as part of the project.
The group is basing its decision on a Mercer University study, discussed first in April and again Wednesday. The study looks at preserving the cultural and ecological integrity between the Ocmulgee National Monument and Lamar Mounds if the Fall Line Freeway is extended there.
Not only is the area sensitive to the Muscogee Indians, but it also contains some of the state's oldest peat layers, which can act as records of life in the area more than 10,000 years ago.
Brian Rood, an environmental science professor at Mercer, says if the road must be built through such a sensitive area, then the project should focus on conserving the remaining property.
Private land owners, who control most of the property here, are destroying the land by selling the peat, mining for clay and removing timber - precious habitat for many species in the forested area there, Rood said.
"It's being nickeled and dimed away already," said Rood.
But if business leaders teamed up with environmentalists, the road could be built as the property is saved from this destruction. It might take both sides to come together on a project that has been bitterly divisive.
"I think we ought to try and meet with the environmentalists opposed to the project and see what they think," said Damon King, chairman of the Friends of the Fall Line Freeway. "This could be a breakthrough."
Those people involved include CAUTION-Macon member Susan Hanberry, Mercer law professors Jack Sammons and Steve Johnson, local environmental watchdog John Wilson and possibly a representative of the Muscogee Nation. Each has opposed the project for different reasons, but they all fear the Fall Line Freeway extension will desecrate what federal officials have termed the Muscogee's traditional cultural property. The Muscogee tribe now resides in Oklahoma.
"That's a step in the right direction, and I applaud and encourage the efforts toward compromise, so long as folks realize the decision is made by the Muscogees," Sammons said. "There are environmental interests to be protected, but the primary interest is the subject of their claim to the traditional cultural property."
The federal designation offers limited protection from development involving federal offices, including a byway such as the Fall Line Freeway. But it doesn't protect the land from private property owners, Sammons said.
The idea has been to purchase the land like a similar trust with co-ownership: The Muscogee Indians and the National Park Service, which already controls the Ocmulgee National Monument, Sammons said.
Bill Stembridge, a spokesman for Rep. Saxby Chambliss, R-Moultrie, says there likely would be federal money available to purchase property and create permanent easements, offering protection from private land owners. Chambliss supports construction of the freeway, designed to connect Augusta with Columbus by way of Macon.
It is named for the fall line, the point where Georgia was once part of the ocean.
(Actually the "Fall Line" refers to where on any river is the last waterfall - where the river changes to a wider smoother water suitable for barges and larger riverboats. Where the piedmont meets the coastal plane.
Steamboats could come up the Ocmulgee River to Macon - but no further. This made Macon into an early major transportation hub. Augusta and Columbus are similarly located on their respective rivers at the terminus of steamboat traffic - at the Fall Line. - Lindsay)
State Department of Transportation officials won't commit to any extended conservation project, saying they don't know yet what effects the Fall Line Freeway will bring.
Because of the federal property listing, the state DOT is responding still to questions from the Federal Highway Administration on environmental effects.
"We hope to meet again with them within the next month," said Harvey Keepler, the state's environmental and location engineer. "
Keepler won't say what the Federal Highway Administration has questioned or release any of the material to the public. He says it is still in draft format and could change.
Eventually, a public hearing will be held about an impact statement.
The state DOT does say it will bridge the project to minimize effects, and it does historically conserve buffers surrounding projects of 50 to 100 feet.
This wouldn't be enough to retain the cultural and ecological beauty of wetlands and forests that is slowly fading away, Rood said. The Mercer study included taking core soil samples and dating them. Some peat samples 6 feet deep were more than 9,000 years old.
"This goes down probably about four times deeper," he said. "But this sample is about the time three-toed horses and saber-toothed tigers were roaming the area."
The study also looked at what effects Interstate 16 has had on the area. There have been some, including a lake created from a hole that remained after digging for fill dirt and possibly the introduction of invasive species such as privet.
Rood said after the meeting he wasn't proposing one route or another for the Fall Line Freeway, but that possibly this could spur new discussions of compromise and protection.
"This has been a project where people don't want to sit at the same table with each other," he said. "They feel very opposed to the other side."
- To contact Christopher Schwarzen, call 744-4213 or e-mail cschwarzen@macontel.com.
Reprinted under the Fair Use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html doctrine of international copyright law.
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