"Scary!"
Posted on 09/21/2006 2:31:13 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Pat Hensen spent a good part of his 35-year career with the Soil Conservation Service (now Natural Resource Conservation Service) helping Texas Blacklands farmers improve their land.
And he’s invested considerable time, effort and money the last 20 years doing the same on his own or leased acreage.
And it may all end up under yards of concrete and asphalt if the Trans Texas Corridor passes muster and follows the latest proposed route.
“My farm would be in the middle of it,” Hensen says from his Bell County living room where he and wife Loretta participate in a grassroots campaign to stop what they believe is no more than a land grab and an unconscionable destruction of some of the best farm land in the Southwest.
“Regardless of where it goes, it will take out about 150 acres per mile through the heart of the Blacklands,” Hensen says.
Ultimately, the corridor would link with the NAFTA highway and stretch from Canada into the heart of Mexico and take a chunk of farmland out of the Midwest. When completed, the Trans Texas Corridor would include more than 4,000 miles of intersecting highways across the state.
“They plan to take the best land we have to build a road and once it’s paved it’s gone forever,” Hensen says. “The corridor will take acreage equal to one county out of Texas.”
He says a lot of Texans are not aware of the corridor and certainly not cognizant of the lost acreage and disruption it will create.
The road, which supporters tout as a multi-use corridor with a passenger highway, a roadway for trucking, a rail line and utility lines, takes a 1200-foot swath out of the rural areas it crosses. The roadway may claim another 200-foot right-of-way.
“It does not have to be that wide,” Hensen says.
He’s convinced that the road cuts through farmland instead of following Interstate 35 because of business and environmentalist interest.
“We’re giving up all this good farm land to protect some kind of sparrow,” he says. “No one seems interested in protecting farmers.”
The corridor is supposed to be a toll road but opponents question if tolls will pay the freight and point out that the contractor has already lobbied the Texas legislature for funds. Construction could begin within the next few years with a completion target of 2017. “They could break ground next year (near Laredo),” Loretta says.
“It would include six train tracks,” Hensen says. “I didn’t know that taxpayers were responsible for paying for rail and utility lines.” That chore usually goes to private enterprise, he says.
“We’re developing a grassroots opposition,” Loretta says. A Web site, www.corridorwatch.org, offers updates on opposition efforts.
“It’s been so secretive it’s scary,” Hensen says. He’s also concerned about the waterlines that will run alongside the roadway and railroad tracks. He fears large cities will pull water out of rural areas into municipalities, leaving farmers without adequate water for crop irrigation or livestock production.
They say plans have moved quickly to get the corridor on a fast track. “First we heard was in 2002,” Hensen says. “The people of Texas should be concerned about the loss of 100,000 acres of prime Blackland farm acreage. It’s wrong to take that much farmland out of production without adequate compensation. They could take less valuable acreage.”
The Hensens say the corridor still needs federal approval.
The Texas Farm Bureau opposes the corridor. Bureau President Kenneth Dierschke and members of the organization’s state board of directors have voiced their opposition at public forums. Their concern includes a fear that the proposed corridor will eventually swallow up many thousands of acres of Texas’ best farmland.
Dierschke says the corridor jeopardizes the region’s continued farming heritage. The Texas Farm Bureau also expresses concern over access to and from the different communities in the area and foreign country dealings in the crafting of the superhighway contracts.
A company from Spain, Cintra, has been awarded a contract to build the corridor.
“The Texas Farm Bureau is on record as being opposed to the Trans Texas Corridor,” Dierschke says. “Our voting delegates at our annual meetings have expressed their continued opposition to its construction.”
The Texas chapter of the National Farmers’ Union also opposes the corridor.
“We passed a resolution at our convention opposing it,” says Texas NFU President Wes Sims.
He has seen “a lot of anger” from Texas landowners who believe the corridor is a big land grab. He says the farm group has several concerns with the corridor.
The method of acquiring land tops the list. “They’re using eminent domain to take property,” he says, “with no consideration of the effects on the livelihood of property owners. It’s mostly agricultural acreage, away from cities, but farms will not be the only businesses affected.
“What happens to those small towns along the corridor route?” Sims says access along the corridor will be limited to major highways, leaving a lot of rural communities and the businesses they count on for their economic bases without access from the highways that funneled business into them for decades.
He said the corridor’s limited access also will affect farmers’ ability to get to stores, services, churches and schools. In some cases, the roadway will prevent reasonable access from one side of a farm to another. Potential to disrupt water availability also concerns land owners.
Sims says a lot of Texans are angry at the way the corridor came about. Texas voters approved an amendment to the state constitution allowing the legislature to alleviate traffic congestion along Interstate 35.
“But there were no details about how they would do it,” Sims says. “I voted against it and encouraged my members to do the same. Voters thought they were voting to improve traffic problems on I-35.
“I think the majority of Texas landowners opposed this corridor. It was done in a deceitful, tricky way.”
Sims says Texans still have options. “It’s not too late to stop it,” he says. “The legislature can do it.”
He says the citizens of Texas need to exert enough pressure on the legislature to force them to rescind the action.
Carole Keeton Strayhorn, TEXAS COMPTROLLER
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Do we really need a massive, foreign-owned toll road system in Texas? No.
Gov. Rick Perry and his special interest crowd at the Capitol are not listening to the people of Texas.
At 55 hearings across the state, thousands of hard-working Texans said, "No," to Perry's still secret deal with a foreign company to build toll roads across Texas.
The governor and his transportation officials insist on going forward with his Trans-Texas Corridor, the largest land grab in Texas history — seizing half a million acres of private property. Texas property belongs to Texans, not foreign companies.
I am adamantly opposed to the governor's Trans-Texas Catastrophe. His secret agreement will allow a foreign company to own the for-profit toll road "concessions" for more than 50 years.
I have outlined a transportation plan that puts Texans first, not special interests. In a Strayhorn administration, we will once again have a transportation system that is the envy of the nation, with freeways not tollways.
My long-term solutions expand freeways using existing rights of way under two completed Texas Department of Transportation studies, increase efficiency and use of our existing rail lines and ports, expand telecommuting, and appoint an inspector general at TxDOT and a transportation ombudsman to listen to Texans. This protects Texas farm and ranch land, improves coastal evacuations, increases capacity of existing freeways and railways, and encourages family and environment friendly telecommuting.
Visit my Web site, www.onetoughgrandma.com, to learn more.
The Perry administration says we have insufficient funds for transportation and have to toll existing roads such as U.S. 290 in Austin and Houston, U.S. 281 in San Antonio, and Texas 121 in Dallas/Fort Worth. I oppose this double taxation.
The truth is that TxDOT's budget has increased an incredible 117 percent under this administration. The transportation budget increased $8.2 billion to a total of $15.2 billion. By comparison, our state budget has increased $44 billion dollars, 45 percent in the same time. We have plenty of money; we need the courage to spend it wisely. In 25 years, just maintaining the current transportation funding would provide $190 billion for roads.
We have $4 billion in Texas Mobility Bonds approved on my motion in 2005, an additional $3 billion in revenue bonds approved in 2003, increased federal funds and increased tax collections at the state level. Texans have paid more in inspection fees and license tags in the past six years. Make no mistake, a fee or a toll collected by the government is a tax.
I stand with Texans from the Rio Grande Valley to the Red River who oppose the governor's attempt to seize land and build tolls across Texas. I listened to the people of Texas, and the people of Texas are overwhelmingly opposed to this $184 billion boondoggle.
TxDOT is telling Texans they cannot stop this boondoggle — even if they elect a new governor. That is dead wrong. I will blast this corridor off the bureaucratic books, replacing it with my common-sense plan to address our transportation needs.
Texans deserve the truth. Much of the work to get Texans from here to there has already been done — by TxDOT itself. In fact, I provided three reports to TxDOT to stop the Trans-Texas Corridor:
Tolling roads that were planned as freeways, and converting freeways to tollways is double taxation, and it is wrong.
I am adamantly opposed to tollways when we are awash in transportation funds, to double taxation and to seizing more than half a million acres of hard-working Texans' property and turning them over to a foreign company. Texans are opposed to it, and the governor knows it. That is why he is postponing collecting tolls on existing roads to just after the election. The people of Texas will not be fooled.
In this election, there are two sides and one choice — the Austin political establishment and its land-grabbing, secret, foreign-owned tolls versus the people and their desire for freeways. I stand with the people. I will shake Austin up.
Strayhorn is an independent gubernatorial candidate.
Landowners Filing Open Records Request To TxDOT
Some Central Texas landowners are taking aim at yet another major transportation project. They're trying to pry information about the project, which has been kept secret for more than a year.
The Trans Texas Corridor could run parallel to I-35, east of the soon-to-be complete State Highway 130.
Last year, TxDOT and the private company hired to build the TTC filed a court challenge to keep certain portions of their contract from being released to the public.
What the landowners in Williamson County want to do is create a groundswell in the Austin region and elsewhere to get everything out in the open.
"It is beautiful and we love it, and we don't want to see it paved over," landowner Dan Byfield said.
These days, Byfield is doing his best to save his pastoral land in Williamson County from what would be the Trans Texas Corridor.
"If they're going to run over, I'd sure like to know," Byfield said.
The immense TTC would combine highway and rail from the Mexican border to north Texas. There's no specific route yet, but there's a wide swath of preferred corridor which includes areas near Austin's airport and other parts of Central Texas.
Byfield's land is in that path. He said he believes unreleased parts of the project's contract may reveal things that will affect many.
"I think they know where this route is going to go. They know where this highway is going to go, and they don't want landowners knowing that because that would get everybody up in arms," Byfield said.
A large number of other homeowners are now joining him in filing open records requests to send to TxDOT to get information the agency's been fighting to keep close to the vest.
TxDOT says it can't release certain portions because there were issues dealing with ongoing selection and bid processes. Almost a year later, they say they're close to finishing issues, but not yet.
While TxDOT says it's trying to protect sensitive information, residents like Byfield say the concept of open government should, but is not working here.
"It's my land. It's my private property, and I have a right to know what's in that contract if it's going to affect me," Byfield said.
As for last year's court challenge to keep portions of the TTC contract from being released, we're told a hearing on that could happen next month in Travis County.
IT'S TOLL & CORRIDOR SUMMIT TIME AGAIN!
On Saturday, October 7, 2006, CorridorWatch.org will host its second Toll & Corridor Summit at the Clarion Inn & Suites in Austin, Texas. Our list of outstanding and nationally recognized guest speakers will be publicly announced very soon.
The 2006 summit will continue the process begun two years ago to educate and create an informed public. With this meeting we will better define our shared concerns and issues and determine what action is required to address them.
The Summit program is designed to educate decision makers, public leaders, and organized grassroots advocacy groups about the current transportation issues that will affect all Texans.
Please save the date and register soon to attend this informative program.
For more information please visit the CorridorWatch.org website or contact our Summit Coordinator Heidi Ullrich at heidi@corridorwatch.org or by telephone at 512.585.3110.
Please extend this invitation to the leaders and members of other groups you belong to.
CUE SPOOKY MUSIC!
Trans-Texas Corridor PING!
You are CORRECT, Sir! And congrats on getting in before the ping!
bump for later
It won't all be lost. When Kinky is elected governor he'll have marijuana planted in the right of way.
Oh boy. Somebody done gone and picked at a festering sore, again. The Goodhair, Granny, and Bell crowd are heading this way. If you lean over your 'puter and listen closely, one can hear 'em zipping across the server.
My Dad got eminent domained when I-94 went thru the middle of Central Minnesota in the early 60s, lost a chunk of tillable land from a 160 acre plot including wooded and marsh habitat.
You can call it progress, whatever you want, but in cases where it literally hits those home on the farm.. it hurts to remember what was lost and question the value of what was gained.
I wish these families well and hope they have good legal advice.
BTTT
I wish these families well and hope they have good legal advice.
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I am afraid legal advice does not work anymore when it comes to the government having carte blanche to steal your property at will. The SCOTUS and its socialist activists have seen to that....
They're building a freeway? The HORROR!
"I am afraid legal advice does not work anymore when it comes to the government having carte blanche to steal your property at will. The SCOTUS and its socialist activists have seen to that...."
Except that the people who's property is "stolen" receive compensation at market value and using eminent domain for a highway is clearly a public use that has always been considered constitutional.
The really scary part is that the "through" lanes will be a tollroad. There will be toll-free access and service roads, yet to hear some tell it the whole thing will be tollway. And there is a plan to have rail, utility, and pipeline easement. Not like people in the north and northeast need communications, electricity, fuel oil, refined petroleum, or natural gas for anything.
"Scary!"
A "Dr. Robert Pastor, North American Union Hellish BUMP"!
And don't forget all that cotton that won't be planted, I feel so used. No freeway for you, the farm to market system will do just fine.
The problem I have is market value per what formula?
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