by Hugh Rogers 

At last, our elected officials have begun to fight over highway money. The pretense that we could build every road we could imagine reached its climax during the Underwood administration. In February, Gov. Bob Wise had to cancel nearly $100 million in highway design contracts. It was obvious that we couldn't pay all of former Gov. Cecil’s bills, but even so, there were complaints. Some places continued to get more than their share. "I want the kind of attention paid to southern West Virginia that is given to Corridor H," said House Majority Leader Rick Staton. "We’re just as deserving as everybody else."

Did he say "Corridor H?" Yes he did. Although no elected official will say out loud that the Corridor H boondoggle is draining money that could be better spent elsewhere, you might say the cat is out of the bag.

How much money? New figures are in. The Corridor H northern bypass around Elkins cost $67.2 million for three and a half miles. That works out to $19.2 million per mile. For ten years, the Department of Transportation estimated Corridor H’s cost at $10 million a mile. The up-to-date number is nearly double that and they haven’t reached the big mountains yet. At this rate, the hundred-mile four-lane mountaintop removal and paving project would cost somewhere around $2 billion.

That $19.2 million per mile is a "hard" figure to highway engineers. When they do their cost-benefit calculations, they prefer such numbers to the "soft" values of streams, trees, and habitat lost, the impact of noise or the death of small communities. Six years ago, you’ll recall, the EPA did a cost-benefit analysis of Corridor H using the highway department’s lowball estimate. EPA’s Region III said the project didn’t balance: no reasonably likely benefits could offset the cost of building and the damage to the environment. That truth-telling cost the Regional Director his job.

Since then, Corridor H has been broken into stand-alone sections. Each part must justify its costs. As the figures keep changing and the money gets tighter, there will be more opportunities to say some roads should not be built.