Smoky Mountain Route Promised by U.S. in 1941 Is Still Not Built : Road Issue Splits Residents, Environmentalists

Gathering her courage, Gertrude Laney, 70, climbed aboard a barge to cross the choppy waters of Fontana Lake in the Great Smoky Mountains and set out to visit the graves of her husband and son for the first time in 40 years. She walked six miles over steep hills and sank to her knees when she finally reached her little boy’s tombstone, weeping softly until it was time to leave.

Like many of her neighbors in the dirt-poor mountain country of North Carolina, Laney had to get to the graveyard as best she could. In 1941, the federal government flooded a road through the area to build a reservoir on the lake’s northern shore. Congress agreed to rebuild the highway quickly so that the people of Swain County could at least continue to visit the ancestral cemeteries.

But the promise was never kept. And now, legislation is pending in Congress to ensure that it may never be kept. Under a bill before the Senate subcommittee on public lands, national parks and forests, the federal government would compensate Swain County $9.5 million for its troubles but prevent the disputed road from ever being built.

The proposal has stirred a furor in the region.

“They thought they could break their word to us just because we’re mountain people,” said Leeunah Vance Woods, who recalled the story about her friend Laney during a Tuesday hearing on the issue before the panel. “For some of us, the memories in those cemeteries are all we’ve got. Lots of folks have died just waiting for that road to get built.”

Yet many others have fought just as hard to block the new road from slicing into the pristine Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which overlaps parts of North Carolina and Tennessee. The emotional clash between a handful of stubborn mountain folk and a coalition of environmental groups shows what can happen when the government seeks to protect the nation’s dwindling wilderness areas--even at the price of a community’s pride.

At the heart of the issue is a disagreement over how the federal government should protect the vast forest areas of the Great Smoky Mountains, the nation’s most widely visited park. The legislation before Congress would declare 467,000 acres of parkland as a wilderness preserve, an area that would include the 28 little cemeteries on the north shore of Fontana Lake. Under the plan, no new development of any kind would be permitted in the park.

The proposal’s sponsors, Tennessee’s Democratic Sens. Jim Sasser and Albert Gore Jr., and Terry Sanford (D-N.C.), said that no new road should be built to the cemeteries because it would be too costly and might trigger landslides on the steep hills above the lake. All in all, Sanford told the subcommittee, considering the $9.5-million compensation that would be provided, it seemed like a pretty fair deal.

‘Talking About Heritage’

“Like hell,” complained Hubert Hendrie, after Tuesday’s hearing. “That’s no deal, because we still don’t get the road. We’re talking about our heritage here.”

Hendrie said that he and many of his neighbors have relatives going back to the Civil War buried in the cemeteries near Fontana Lake. A few date back to the Revolutionary War. Many of the mountain folk living nearby make regular excursions to the cemeteries, some conducting religious services and others just quietly visiting burial sites. All do their best to maintain the cemeteries, which are frequently battered by harsh winters.

“To the folks in Swain County, this is a pretty important place,” he said. “It’s not being treated that way.”

For years, the National Park Service has arranged for Hendrie and other residents to cross the lake and ride in four-wheel-drive vehicles to the remote graveyards, but only by appointment. The round trip takes four to five hours, instead of the 90 minutes an automobile ride might take, residents said. Under an agreement negotiated by federal officials with Swain County officials, that arrangement would continue.

Helms Wants Road

The plan was blasted by Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), who is pushing rival legislation that would allocate $9.5 million to the county, but designate only 400,000 acres of the park as wilderness and mandates construction of the cemetery road. Helms told the subcommittee that his bill would earmark $950,000 to build a primitive, dirt road that “would in no way” jeopardize the national park.

“At issue is whether the U.S. government will keep its word,” he said. “Is fear of self-proclaimed environmentalists so great that (we) will refuse to honor a promise?”

Helms was answered by a parade of environmental spokesmen, who said that any kind of road in the park, no matter how small, could spell disaster.

“The Great Smoky Mountains National Park contains a priceless natural heritage,” said Robert B. Smythe, speaking on behalf of the Sierra Club of North Carolina. “Most of the park must be preserved as wilderness . . . the proposed road would be entirely inappropriate and cause considerable environmental damage.”

Smythe and others contend that building a road along the steep hills facing Fontana Lake could cause rockslides and pollute the waters with acidic chemicals found in many of the rocks. More important, they said, a road built into the forest might set the precedent for further development and jeopardize the wilderness with new tourist industry.

“I can’t see any way we would ever build the road,” said Sen. Dale Bumpers (D-Ark.), chairman of the Senate panel. “The risks are just too great. I think the government has reached an acceptable compromise with these people and it’s about time.”

But Hendrie, Woods and others who had come before the subcommittee to speak their minds were not impressed. When the hearing ended, they were bitter. Although the issue is a long way from being resolved, they were pessimistic about the outcome. “You know, I think some things have just been overlooked here,” said Woods, her voice shaking, as she carefully inserted photographs and maps of her family’s mountain burial plots into a briefcase. “We’ve just been passed by and swept aside.”