Mr. Enright has long been an activist for the environment, publicly addressing issues of karst, development, and protecting our woods. He is a founding member of "Protect our Woods" and was instrumental in the development of The Bloomington Environmental Centers office space that is home for several Bloomington social issue and environmental groups. As part of his ongoing study of GIS at Indiana University he has been analyzing the legally mandated and proposed routes of I-69, the NAFTA international corridor interstate.
We believe the work of Kevin Enright is some of the most important to a reasoned analysis of the I-69 project. This was all done at no cost as a volunteer effort of Mr. Enright. COUNT US! and taxpayers of the United States owe him a great "thanks!"
Recently, he was asked: Could you send me a paragraph or two
explaining how you determined the mileages, how you document your
work and your credentials? Click
here for his responce.
Kevin Enright's Maps:
 |
Kevin Enright has has researched most if not all the information available
from the states that the Corridor 18/ I-69 is proposed to pass through.
He has come up with a range of alternatives that prove I-69 if built would
be between 45 miles and 150 miles longer than the already built interstate
highways between Laredo, Texas and Port Huron, Michigan. One source
of routing can be found at: Interstate
69@AARoads- Interstate Guide .
Enright's GIS of the most widely expected route agrees with proponents
distances for the built I-69. EIGHTY-SIX
MILES LONGER THAN EXISTING INTERSTATE HIGHWAYS.
You can't look at all this data without realizing that the $10 Billion
that I-69 is said that it will cost is low by a factor of probably four.
Enright's thoughts on the cost of this boondoggle project will be linked
here soon.
Click here, or on the map to the left to see Kevin Enrights original GIS map that shows I-69 will perhaps be longer than existing Interstate I-55, I-57 and I-70. To justify a $1.75 billion dollar price tag through Indiana and a great deal of environmental damage and a nationally predicted price of $10 Billion dollars, proponents of the highway have predicted 10,000 trucks will be drawn to this route each day. COUNT US! believes that this assumption is incorrect. The Associated Press has reported that Bernardin, Lochmueller and Associates as "backers of the highway" have predicted a 4 hour reduction of travel time from Mexico to Canada. No official study has been commissioned of the entire route. We believe the project was misconceived by Congressional mandate. In this time of competition for federal funds, and troubled state economies, we hope that Enright's work can trigger a second look. To date, three newspaper articles have reported on this. We believe the Evansville paper at very least has made clear that the routing of proposed I-69 through Indiana on US 41 and I-70 is a compromise that would reduce the cost through Indiana by 60% and Nationally by 10%, saving $1 billion dollars. Links to newspaper articles. |
This graphic was produced by COUNT US! from maps provided by the Evansville to Indianapolis DEIS. |
In comments to the Tier 1 DEIS for Evansville to Indianapolis, The
EPA made strong comments that destruction of the Patoka National Wildlife
Area, "A mature forested wetland", (shown as the black dot to the left)
should move INDOT to use the existing corridor, US 41 and I-70 as shown
in blue here. INDOT looked at a proposed hybrid
of all the routes, here shown in red. Kevin
Enright did a GIS analysis of the comparative distance of US-41 and I-70
to this proposed route. From this, COUNT US! was able to perform analysis
of the performance of this "hybrid alternative". Frankly, the hybrid did
not "perform".
We believe this analysis promoted by COUNT US! may have caused INDOT to take on the EPA directly regarding the Patoka Area. We believe this is a sad error of INDOT and Governor O'Bannon. This Patoka area is a state and national treasure and should be protected: It is the home of two endangered species, abundant wildlife, two antique iron bridges, the Erie/Wabash canal at the point it is above ground level as well as a rare mature forested wetland. I-69 at this point would bisect two protected lands, the National Patoka Wildlife Refuge and the Indiana Department of Natural Resources Sugar Ridge Fish and Wildlife Area. COUNT US! is actively trying to protect this area. Click here, or on the map to the left to see Kevin Enright's original GIS map that showed the compared distance of the hybrid to the less damaging and less expensive Alternative #1 (US-41 and I-70). Click here to review the COUNT US! performance analysis of the "hybrid". |
