To the Editor:
Speaking for Corridor H Alternatives and the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, we appreciate your coverage of the decades-long Corridor H story.
On April 7, along with Friends of Blackwater, we presented some new maps and old history at a Town Hall in the Senior Center in Thomas. The article in your April 15 edition misquoted me on an important point. Concerning the Settlement Agreement we reached with the state and federal Departments of Transportation back in 2000, your reporter wrote that “none of the [plaintiffs] could be part of any future litigation.” That is not true.
Under the Agreement, what we may not do in a future case is claim that the highway departments should have considered a two-lane alternative. Otherwise, we may go back to court if they violate federal transportation law—and obviously, if they violate the Agreement.
The Court of Appeals’ ruling in our favor was based on the proposed highway’s likely impacts to two nationally-recognized historic districts: the Corricks Ford Battlefield along the Shavers Fork south of Parsons, and the Blackwater Historic District along the North Fork of the Blackwater south of Thomas. The Court offered a mediator for negotiations, pressing us to agree on a compromise route.
And so we did once. The Battlefield Avoidance Route is currently under construction. That part of the Kerens to Parsons section may open to traffic later this year.
Can we do it again? So far, the Division of Highways has refused to give up on its Revised Original Preferred Alignment (ROPA), which would cut directly across the Blackwater Historic District. Whether that choice would comply with Section 4(f) of the federal transportation law comes down to a single word: does ROPA “use” the historic district? “Use” in that context means “impact” or “affect.”
In our view, the question was all but answered by the Court of Appeals more than 25 years ago. More explicitly, the former Supervisor of the Monongahela National Forest, on which the district lies, spoke to the effect of a bridge that would cross the North Fork within the district: “Whatever the final design of the piers and span, a bridge of the proportions necessary for this project cannot fail to have an adverse effect on the integrity of setting, feeling, and, possibly, association of this site.”
We should know soon whether or not Highways will agree to another compromise. Its Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) is scheduled to be released on June 6. That is the only presentation the public can comment on. The Final EIS is expected in June 2027.
Hugh Rogers
Kerens, WV