Hitchhikers and Environmental Destruction

November 4, 2008 by Curt Siters

 I live just outside of Asheville and use the public transportation system (a.k.a. the bus) to get around quite a bit. Where I live is just a couple of miles from where two interstates intersect and the main road near my house crosses both of them thus providing a “shortcut” although it is only a shortcut in distance. A brief section of this road is four lane near a mall and a portion of the road from the mall to the second highway is being widened from 2-lane to 4-lane.

People lose property through “eminent domain” for projects like this. Eminent domain is the inherent power of the state to seize a citizen's private property, expropriate property, or rights in property with due monetary compensation, but without the owner's consent.

I was thinking about this the other day and this morning I was reminded of a section at the very beginning of Douglas Adams’ book “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” regarding bypasses.

"What do you mean, why's it got to be built?" Arthur said.
"It's a bypass. You've got to build bypasses." –Mr Prosser
Mr Prosser: "But the plans were on display..."
Arthur: "On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them."
Mr Prosser: "That's the display department."
Arthur: "With a torch."
Mr Prosser: "Ah, well the lights had probably gone."
Arthur: "So had the stairs."
Mr Prosser: "But look, you found the notice didn't you?"
Arthur: "Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying Beware of the Leopard."

This led to thoughts of infrastructure and how our current one is in serious decay with no money to maintain it yet there is plenty of money to build new and widen others.

The other day I saw them removing trees. The weren’t cutting them down and selling the wood; they were ripping them out and grinding the wood into mulch. As a man with dreams of having a shop this brought tears to my eyes and a great sadness to my heart. Some of the trees were hardwoods and I know, I KNOW, there are many woodworkers out there that would love to get their hands on this wood.

At fair market value it may have produced $100,000. Not a lot, but it would have helped to offset the cost of the road widening. The flip side is that it would have allowed these trees to live on as functional or artistic items.

I wonder why this expansion was done. There is no significant business along the road and there are some, but not a lot, of residences. It isn’t a long section - maybe one and a half miles in length.

Instead the wood was wasted, the ground torn up and someone lost a portion of their land.

###

Curt Siters is an Independent Associate for Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc. He is also aYoung Living Essential Oils Independent distributor and publishes articles on YourWebReference and at TheVeryEssence. He also does web work such as website design, website maintenance and SEO for websites.

Join me on any of the following sites: LinkedIn, Twitter, friendfeed, Facebook.