Environment played big role in Corridor K plans

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    Robbinsville – Corridor K may eventually happen, but it will not be the one that was imagined some 50 years ago, when discussions to build it first began.
    The beginning of construction on the project was recently moved up to 2026. However, protests by environmental groups and citizens have eliminated the possibilities of tunneling near Tatham Gap and the Snowbird Mountains, or an alternate route parallel to Jutts Creek toward Andrews.
    These scenarios – known in N.C. Department of Transportation-speak as T-1 and T-4 – have been crossed off the list, leaving the project to improve the roads between Andrews and Topton in Cherokee County, plus from Robbinsville to Stecoah in Graham County. Letters have been sent to those who protested the eliminated routes, and updates have been posted on the DOT’s website.
    On the topic of environmental impact, MountainTrue partnered with other regional groups to send a letter to DOT engineer Brian Burch after the public meetings in February to express their dismay with those now-defunct routes. Of their three points, the first was the potential damage to high-value watersheds of possible tunnels in those affected areas.
    “In addition, water quality and abundance in the mountains is highly dependent on subsurface hydrology. Disturbances caused by road construction can dramatically impact the flashiness of mountain streams, magnifying the effects of both flood and drought, and can reduce the abundance of water from springs and wells,” MountainTrue’s letter reads.
    “These impacts are particularly important in the project area, where rural homes and communities do not have access to (nor do they want to be dependent on) city water. Property values, therefore, depend largely on up-gradient hydrology and the protected national forest watersheds where groundwater is recharged.”
    They also cited the economic impact of the watershed to tourism, citing as an example, “Trout fishing in North Carolina’s mountains contributes $383.3 million to the state’s economy and supports 3,600 jobs, most of which are in the mountain region.”
    The literature goes on to cite that Jutts Creek is designated WS-III, a tributary to Tallulah Creek, which is designated as a trout stream and classified by the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission as a Wild Trout Water. The second point of the environmental impact letter covers unfragmented forests, noting that wild species need to have their ecological integrity maintained.
    “The project area contains large unfragmented “core” habitat blocks, which provide suitable conditions for game species, non-game species, and rare, endemic, and dispersal-limited species,” MountainTrue’s letter reads. “The project area also contains important connectivity corridors, which allow for the movement of broad-ranging species like black bear. These resources are especially important to consider during the location of transportation corridors, because roads are the primary cause of habitat fragmentation.”
    They also added a segment about plant and animal biodiversity that maintains the food chain and ecosystem in the entire region. The study’s suggested routes stress the importance economically of bringing traffic to Robbinsville rather than around it.
    At the Cherokee County Board of Commissioners meeting Sept. 3, Commissioner C.B. McKinnon praised the fact that western North Carolina officials have been working on the project as opposed to folks from Raleigh.
    “We are going to get an improved highway from Andrews to Topton,” McKinnon said. “It’s not the Corridor K we envisioned, but we will see this section get completed, I believe.”