Scenic highway bid gains foes
By PAUL HAMMEL , World-Herald Bureau
LINCOLN - Some Sand Hills residents are fighting a plan to obtain a federal scenic byway designation for a stretch of Highway 2 that dissects the unique expanse of grass-covered hills of sand in Nebraska.
While proponents dismiss any concerns and say the honor is designed to boost tourism, opponents fear the fine print. They say the federal designation could curtail private property rights of ranchers and head off things like wind farms, cellular phone towers and farm-building construction along the byway.
A group in the Hyannis area obtained a resolution of opposition from the Grant County Board and says it has collected signatures of nearly 100 local landowners against the scenic designation.
"We think it infringes on property rights. We don't think it will help agriculture or increase tourism," said Alice Sibbitt, whose family ranch sits right along Nebraska Highway 2 west of Hyannis.
Proponents say the designation is simply about increasing awareness of and traffic on Highway 2 - not government regulations - and to enhance tourist spending in struggling rural communities.
"I'm a little confused about (the opposition). We don't have that kind of power," said Jeanne Davis, a board member and treasurer of the Sandhills Journey Scenic Byway, which is bidding to become Nebraska's first federally designated scenic highway.
Davis, who lives in Hyannis, said local planning commissions and county boards would continue to govern what is built or not built along Highway 2, whether it's declared a federal scenic road or not.
"We're not trying to infringe on anyone's rights or privileges," Davis said.
Any concerns about that, she said, will be addressed in a management plan that is being drafted for the scenic byway, which would extend 272 miles from Grand Island to Alliance.
There are nearly 130 roads designated as scenic byways or All-American roads under a program started in 1991 by the U.S. Transportation Department.
The list includes the Strip in Las Vegas, Maine's Acadia Byway, Trail Ridge Road west of Estes Park, Colo., and highways through western Iowa's Loess Hills, South Dakota's Black Hills and Kansas' Flint Hills.
Doug Hecox of the Federal Highway Administration, which administers the program, said the goal is to encourage tourist traffic by recognizing special landscapes.
There is no federal power to limit development, Hecox said, other than restrictions on new billboards.
"This is not a federal land grab," he said.
The Sandhills Journey group is progressing with its federal application in the expectation that a new round of applicants will be taken in the coming months.
Just last month, the group began work on renovating a landmark barn in Broken Bow into a visitors center.
The renovation was undertaken to enhance the chances that Highway 2 - called one of America's most scenic drives by the late CBS News reporter Charles Kuralt - will win the federal designation.
Opponents say most of their concerns rest with the management plan and what a federal designation could lead to in the future.
Grant County Commissioner Brian Brennemann, who was part of a unanimous board vote to oppose the designation, said he distrusts the federal government and is wary of additional regulations that might follow such a designation.
Both Brennemann and Sibbitt pointed to what happened along Nebraska's Niobrara River when it became a federally designated scenic river. They said landowners along the river now have several new regulations to deal with.
Sibbitt said she was suspicious of provisions that allow a scenic roadway to include up to 20 miles on either side of the road in its management plan. That seems excessive, she said.
"I like tourists - we have guests here on our ranch all the time - but they don't also control my viewshed," Sibbitt said. Viewshed is a term to describe the area that can be seen from a scenic byway.
Davis, of the scenic byway board, said the 20-mile management provision doesn't carry any regulatory teeth.
It simply allows attractions that are a few miles off the road, such as the Crescent Lake National Wildlife Refuge, to share in the publicity and federal grants available for designated byways.
If Grant County doesn't want to be part of a federal designation, that probably can be accommodated, Davis said. Grant
County is the only entity to oppose the designation, she said.
"If I'm going to put any energy into this," Davis said, "it will be for counties that want it."