From comments to the I-69 Draft Environmental Impact Statement presented August 20, 2002 by John L Smith, the COUNT US organizer of The i-69 Tour of the New Terrain Routes, October 27,2002. He was a 1992 Democrat primary candidate for US Representative District 8.
 

“I have tried to think of an act of nature that would destroy so permanently so many Indiana homes, families and lives. If the New Madrid fault opened up and swallowed this much land it would be a natural disaster of biblical proportion. No Indiana forest fire has ever destroyed so many homes and I doubt that any have. In Indiana it's like the biggest tornado ever, that knocks flat every house in a very wide a swath from Evansville to Bloomington, with a lasting roar that may never stop. There has never been such a tornado. A flood that over runs it's banks like the one in Germany right now and washes away the homes along it's path is more like it, but even then the homeowners had some idea of the possibility when they chose their location. The same is true of hurricanes and tidal waves and volcano's which in Green County I thought were not a possibility. The thing that nature never does is takes the land. It's there to rebuild on with life long ties to one's neighbors and family.
 

Nature is not as cruel as the moneyed persons and the hoodwinked who would request this unnatural disaster to sweep across our state.”

“Moving and money difficulties are two of the top three causes of stress related illness, death and divorce. I am sure that many Hoosiers emotional and physical health is not up to this challenge. Death and family destruction will follow in the wake of a New Terrain highway. What will be the death toll? How many new stress related divorces and disabling health related problems like strokes and emotional disorders? I would hope that this study would include a Center for Disease Control or other pubic health organization assessment of this environmental effect on the thousands of southern Indiana homeowners and their children involved.”________________________________________________________

COUNT US (County Under New Terrain US I-69) an ad hoc citizens group was formed at this August 20th public meeting. COUNT US is notifying 10,000 Hoosiers* of the pending eminent domain of their homes and properties by these new terrain routes. Home owners and their supporters will "Sunday Tour the I-69 New Terrain Routes on October 27, 2002". (See www.i69tour.org.)

Faxed OR E-MAILED from John L Smith/COUNT US/ RR3 BOX 486, SOLSBERRY, IN 47459, (812) 327-6142