Public comment meeting on I-69 held at North Daviess

By Nate Smith, Staff Writer

March 26, 2009 10:16 pm

— ELNORA — Daviess County was the focus of the third section of I-69 Thursday as a public comment hearing was held at North Daviess Elementary School.
The hearing was for a draft environmental impact statement the state, along with project engineers, need in order to start construction.
Section 3, a 26-mile long piece of the interstate, starting at U.S. 50 east of Washington and ending at U.S. 231 near Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane will cost between $322 and $399 million to build, according to David Pluckebaum, project manager with the Corradino Group.

“One big effort that INDOT has been involved with in this project is public involvement,” Pluckebaum said. “I’ve never seen it in any other project.”
Pluckebaum noted that may of the decisions engineers made was with the public in mind, decisions that eliminated diagonal cuts in farmland or kept as many farms whole as possible.

From the study, 18 homes would have to be relocated in Section 3 and a total of 1,742 acres, mostly farmland, would be used for the road.
In the study, three interchanges are located in Section 3. The first is possibly at CR 1100N, where a rest stop would be built, according to the study. The second is at SR 58, just east of North Daviess Junior-Senior High School, then the road goes northeast, towards NSWC Crane. The interchange for the base would be on U.S. 231, just north of the Greene County town of Scotland. INDOT has also created several options for the Crane interchange.
Options were also presented to either close existing county roads or create possible overpasses at CRs 350N, 750N, 800N, 900N and 1400N. An underpass is planned for CR 1500N that would serve the town of Elnora.
Pluckebaum asked for input from the public on three sections. The first was at CR 350N on creating an overpass at the road and 350E or closing 350E and building a road to connect the two. The engineers also asked for input for closing CR 500E and overpasses near CRs 1400N and 1500N. How to create the interchange at U.S. 231 is also being decided by INDOT.
Elected officials were allowed to speak first during the hearing. Although a few members of the North Daviess School Board and County Councilman Mike Sprinkle were present, no one spoke on the study.
Like last Thursday for the Section 2 public comment hearing in Petersburg, members of the group Citizens for Appropriate Rural Roads were vocal during the comment section.
“INDOT is required to take public comments,” CARR member Sandra Togarski said. “Unfortunately they are not required to listen.”
A few Daviess County residents did speak, mostly against the road altogether. Betty Rollins of Odon said her family has had their land near CR 800E for five generations and it would go down in value when the interstate is built.
“The interstate fence line will go right up against my property line and they are going to close off CR 800E,” Rollins said. “Which means, I live in Daviess County but I am going to be cut off from access to Daviess County.”
Gary Heshelman said he understood the need for the road but it would cut through his farm. He asked that CR 1550N or 1600N be left open with an overpass so he does not have to travel at least four miles around just to access the rest of his farm.
“Part of that travel is on SR 57 which is OK if you want a tractor on the highway,” Heshelman said. “We are being paid for our land, but we are not being paid for the inconvenience to travel the four-plus miles to get to the other side of the farm.”
The comment period for the study lasts until June 8. Equal weight is given to comments that are given at the hearing or sent to the project managers, according to INDOT.
Those comments will be addressed in the final impact statement and engineer’s report. The federal Highway Administration will review the final impact statement and issue a record of decision, setting the stage for the road to continue. Construction will begin on Section 3 in 2011, in stages.

Copyright © 1999-2008 cnhi, inc.