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NPS- OWNED "SCENIC" PROPERTY -NEW RIVER ROAD, HINTON
This is a picture of JUST ONE of the MANY boarded up, empty, deteriorating
weed strangled houses owned by the National Park Service along our road.
This picture was taken on 9/9/99, the very day they walked the private
property owners into an ARMED GUARDED room to inform the private property
owners that the highway department would take all the land between the
road and the river, and all the land of equal "scenic" value
between the road and the toe of the mountain and GIVE IT TO THIS SAME
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE!
We are forced to ask: WHEN does the National Park Service's concern for
"scenic" value begin?
We feel the answer is most obvious: ONLY when the National Park
Service can use "scenic value" as an excuse to further strip us
of our private property rights and take our land!!
(The NPS currently owns over 59,000 of the 70,000 acres in the New River
Gorge today!). Land that is taken from the tax base that supports our
schools, subsequently affecting the quality of education for our children,
depreciates the value of adjoining private property and contributes sorely
to the "scenic" value of our road, while homeless people sleep
in cardboard boxes on the streets of this "great" nation. WHAT'S WRONG WITH
THIS PICTURE??!!
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This is one of the "key" properties of such interest to the
agencies in the proposed New River Parkway along our road. The
proposed parkway will go right through this 200 year land patented farm
along the current New River Road (currently center from left to right).
There is a 200 year old land patent on this land that assured the owners
this land would be theirs, their heirs and their assigns forever.
Is FOREVER with our government "ONLY until the government wants it
back?"
AND, WHERE was the NPS all the years when the owners (now 74 and 85
respectively) worked so hard to clear and maintain this land and are
still getting up at 5 A.M. every morning to keep their land so
"scenic"?
The agencies have repeatedly mentioned a "conservation easement"
on this 279 farm, claiming a desire to "protect" this land from
the development of a possible McDonalds! Hummmmmmm, does McDonalds
find an isolated . one lane road, area like this to build their
restaurants? Of course, McDonalds MIGHT desire this site, if some
agency put a big "parkway" through it and a promise of 709%
increase in "tourists" past it!
I know: STOP THE PARKWAY!! STOP THE LAND GRAB!! LEAVE THESE ELDERLY PEOPLE
AND THE RIGHTFUL HEIRS TO THIS 279 ACRES ALONE!!
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This is the first house in the New River National Gorge on our road. It
is owned by the National Park Service and has been sitting there like that
for years! It used to have a detached white garage, graffiti painted
in black paint "Get high on drugs" (until I took pictures of all
their properties and sent them to Bruce Babbitt....saying, "This is
what your supposed 97,000 visitors passed in getting to Sandstone Falls
last year!")
The NPS came in, removed the garage, cut the grass around this house,
strung yellow tape all around (very "scenic"!), and pulled their
old weed strangled deteriorating trailers out. The NPS stills owns
numerous deplorable houses/lands/buildings/swamps on our road yet they
want to talk about "scenic" value while their properties destroy
the tax base, depreciate our property values, and contribute sorely to the
"scenic" value of the road!!
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The year: 2000: The "tourist" view along the NPS owned
Sandstone Falls Boardwalk (A "vernal" pool for wildlife, or a
snake infested , fast approaching Fall season fire hazard threat to
adjacent private property?)
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The National Park Service told residents along our road that the NPS
desire was to rid the area of all the "tin cans with lids"
(referring to homes / fishing camps that were trailers)
IMAGINE the shock for the New River Parkway Authority, the West Virginia
Department of Highways, Virginia Polytechnic Institute consultants
AND Bruce Babbitt, Secretary DOI in 2000, when they received a picture of
one of the biggest "tin can with lids" along our road--boarded
up, idle, empty, weed strangled and OWNED BY THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE!
Only then did the NPS immediately come in and remove this
"scenic" tin can with lids!
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After the State of West Virginia donated 57 acres of land around
Sandstone Falls to the National Park Service on New River Road, the NPS
came in, stopped all bike riding, wading, swimming, and overnight camping
at the Falls and corralled overnight campers into this NPS owned camping
area on our road! (That's our New River Road in the background, the
"proposed" site of New River Parkway)
One may use the "firewood" for a camp fire here, just don't take
any dead wood from here to use as fuel to heat your homes or keep your
children warm. THAT'S AGAINST NPS REGULATIONS!!
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Ann Roachs' Letter to www.street.mail
on Socialism |
