Smokies chief wants to resolve long-running park issues

Besides championing the health of the 520,000-acre forest and urging regional cooperation to improve its sometimes smoggy air, the 51-year-old superintendent said in an interview with The Associated Press that he wants to resolve several long-running issues.

Those include whether to complete the “road to nowhere” along the north shore of Fontana Lake on the North Carolina side of the park, tear down the shuttered Elkmont cabins in Tennessee and set limits on traffic during peak foliage seasons in picturesque Cades Cove.

“As a new superintendent coming in, looking at what is facing the park,” Ditmanson said, “resolution was something I knew that I was going to be responsible for and that I needed to deal with.”

Ditmanson, who was introduced to the Smokies in 1979 by a young part-time ranger and University of Tennessee student who would become his wife, is under no illusion that resolving these issues will come quickly.

Before accepting the job heading the country’s most-visited park, he knew the Smokies were ranked among the nation’s most environmentally threatened parks and preservationists were pressing to save Elkmont.

But rather than a quick fix, Ditmanson believes solving the problems will take serious study and time. “I really feel like consistency is needed. I would really like to be here at least four years, if not longer.”

Ditmanson, who had been in charge of operations at the National Park Service’s northeast regional office in Philadelphia, arrived at the Smokies last May. He is the park’s fourth superintendent since 1994 and intends to stay at least through its 75th anniversary in 2009.

So far he’s impressed park supporters with his impartial approach to controversial topics.

“He’s genuinely a nice fellow,” said Jim Hart, president of the Friends of the Smokies, a major fund-raising support group. “He has a genuine concern to make sure all of the sides involved are heard, and he wants the process to determine the outcome.”

Ditmanson wouldn’t hint about which way he is leaning on some of these issues, but he did offer a timetable for delivering recommendations after, in some cases, years of studies and negotiations.

He expects an announcement on the fate of the early 20th century log cabins and mountain resort at Elkmont by July or August. The choices range from leveling the buildings to rebuilding them, including the Wonderland Hotel, and operating it as a concession for tourists.

Though restoration could cost as much as $40 million, Ditmanson said he asked his staff to evaluate the project first as a natural and cultural resource. “Let’s identify what is the right solution,” he said, “then we can look at what that is going to cost us.”

The North Shore Road issue dates to 1943 as part of a deal to compensate the people of Swain County, N.C., for the Tennessee Valley Authority building Fontana Dam, flooding their land and cutting them off from their family cemeteries so TVA could generate electricity to make aluminum for World War II bombers.

Work on the road stopped in the 1960s over environmental concerns, although congressional funding has revived the project. It remains one of the largest unspoiled tracts in the eastern United States.

“Our goal is by early winter we will be prepared to share with stake holders where we think we are heading in our preferred alternative,” Ditmanson said of the North Shore Road.

The alternatives range from a $52 million no-road settlement with Swain County to building all 30 miles — a 15-year, $374 million undertaking.

What to do about the traffic jams in the woods in Cades Cove is also under study. Two million visitors a year travel the 11-mile loop road past log cabins, barns, frontier churches and wildlife. At peak periods, the drive can take three hours.

Some would close the cove to cars. Others propose electric shuttles. Some would leave it as it is.

“Probably late this year we will be back to have some public meetings” on possibilities, said Ditmanson, who remains undecided himself since some visitors complain about delays while others “don’t mind the experience and come to expect it.”

Ditmanson understands. Recently stuck in traffic behind a tourist who stopped to see a bear, the superintendent said, “You want to keep the traffic moving. But at the same time you go, ‘Isn’t this great! There is a bear right off the road.’ And you want to have the opportunity to see it.”

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On the Net:

Great Smoky Mountains National Park, http://www.nps.gov/grsm/

http://www.friendsofthesmokies.org/