By Cliff Hightower

Staff Writer

OCOEE, Tenn. -- Almost a year ago, Polk County Attorney Denny Mobbs proposed using a rural highway over Little Frog Mountain as a route for U.S. Highway 64 instead of the winding Ocoee Gorge. Mr. Mobbs said last week he believes the route is the most environmentally and economically responsible.

Q: How did you first get involved with Corridor K?

A: In early January, a year ago, our newly elected county executive (Mike Stinnett) mentioned to me he would be going to a Rural Planning Organization meeting in Kimball, Tenn. He kind of asked me a little bit about the process.

I had always been interested in the fact that this road had been on the drawing board for many, many years and nothing ever came of it. So I tried to get some background on it and ended up calling Ken Wester, who is program manager with the Appalachian Development Highway System for the Appalachian Regional Commission. He gave me some extensive background. And that's when I learned there was in excess of $230 million sitting in a Tennessee account that had not even been utilized. From there, I just became more and more interested.

Q: What made you interested?

A: My wife, now retired, has taught at Copper Basin High School. For many years, she commuted through the Ocoee Gorge. We live on the western end.

It's become quite apparent to her, and to me, and for everyone who is thoughtful about it in the community that we have a large degree of impoverishment in the county. The only way I felt that this impoverishment could be remediated is making it possible for heads of households in the Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee border to get to good-paying jobs in a reasonable amount of time. That requires a serious change in the transportation grid in the county.

A better road is an absolute imperative to alleviate the present economic situation.

Q: How did you come up with the Old Kimsey Highway route?

A: When the Tennessee Department of Transportation did their presentation in 2004 with two alignments going through the Ocoee Gorge, the cost was absolutely prohibitive.

I thought the environmental consequences were terrible. I suggested at that meeting in Benton of January 2004 that the state should look at an alternative that would cost less. The ridge that runs east and west where Kimsey Highway is would cost less even if it's longer.

My wife's father for many years was an assistant road supervisor here. He always maintained that if a road was built from one end of the other, Kimsey Highway was the best, the most feasible route. That's why that road was built there when it was built. If you use the Kimsey ridge, there's only one waterway to cross, Greasy Creek.

Talking to the North Carolina Department of Transportation and road builders it was quite apparent to me that it was a lot less costly if you could eliminate bridging, which the 2004 alignments did not do.

Q: What about the environmental impacts?

A: The present road is intolerable. It's unsafe, it's unreliable and it's not suited for interstate truck traffic, interstate commuter traffic, local commuter traffic and tourists wanting a nice drive along the Ocoee River.

The road is not suitable for any of those in its present condition, and I believe it poses an environmental problem as it is. If the environmentalists agree that the present condition is intolerable then that means making improvements to the current road or getting out of the gorge, which means fragmenting the Cherokee National Forest.

My personal belief is the gorge should be left alone and the fragmentation should be minimal. I suggested one route because of cost considerations and because of environmental considerations. It may be a route to the south is more appropriate. Environmentalists cannot look at this and divorce the 16,000 people of Polk County there. They are creatures there just like other creatures are there.

Q: Does it have to be a four-lane road?

A: I don't think so. I don't know. I'm a lawyer, I'm not a trained engineer. What I think needs to be done is the road through the gorge needs to be left the way it is.

The other part of the project, whatever it might be, needs to allow for interstate truck and commuter traffic and local commuter traffic that wants to go straight through in a safe and reasonable manner.

E-mail Cliff Hightower at chightower@timesfreepress.com