A Georgia Department of Transportation plan to build a highway that would connect Rome to I-75 has opposition from neighbors, who said the chosen route would harm the area around Dobbins Mountain.
Neighbors like Doug McGuire live near Dobbins Mountain, which is home to a wildlife preserve, a mine that some consider historic and streams that house a rare type of fish, called the Cherokee Darter.
"It's the wrong route period," McGuire said.
McGuire and other neighbors are so incensed by the plan that they've put up signs that say "Save Dobbins Mountain." They don't understand why GDOT has chosen this route, when there are so many other options.
"This route they're planning has traffic lights up," McGuire said. "You don't put traffic lights on a connector."
GDOT's proposed route, which is waiting a stamp of approval from the Federal Highway Administration, would be the straightest route from Rome to I-75 and would cost taxpayers about $174 million. Neighbors believe GDOT has underestimated how much it would cost to cut into Dobbins Mountain, which could also drive up the cost.
It would also split up the 1,800 acre Cartersville Ranch, home to a family represented by attorney Henry Parkman.
"This is an ill-conceived plan," Parkman said. "It's way too expensive, by $100 million at least. It's very environmentally invasive. And it just does not make sense."
But there's another route, supported by people like Parkman. This route wouldn't require cutting through Dobbins Mountain, and Parkman argued it would cost nearly $100 million less.
But Albert Shelby, the project manager for the 411 connector at GDOT, said that route would take drivers who want to go south to Atlanta too far north, and would be out of their way.
Aside from cost and convenience is the issue of environmental impact to the Dobbins Mountain area. Shelby said GDOT is looking into the impact construction would have. But neighbors said cutting through the mountain's rock would expose a rare type of rock that becomes acidic when exposed to air and water and could kill off the protected Cherokee Darter fish.
An August 2011 letter from Sandra S. Tucker, a field supervisor at the U.S. Department of the Interior, addressed this concern.
"Our position remains that the project is not currently in compliance with the Endangered Species Act or the Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act," Tucker wrote. "In our discussions, the Federal Highway Administration assured us that they will not authorize Federal funding for the project until our office receives enough information to evaluate the effects of the cut at Dobbins to aquatic resources and threatened and endangered species."
Shelby, however, said the project had received federal funding back in 2008.
Still, those against GDOT's route said it's worth it to go further north and cause less harm to the environment.
"It's a little bit out of the way, if you want to go to Atlanta, but it would get you there only 30 seconds slower than route D (GDOT's route)," Parkman said. "And at $100 million cheaper and avoiding all the environmental destruction."
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