At the Wintergreen resort in Nelson County, a disagreement has been brewing for decades over a 400-foot stretch of gravel road.
But now, it’s coming to a head — last month, a congressman got involved.
Curtis Sheets, the fire chief for Wintergreen’s homeowners association, has spent the past 24 years lobbying the National Park Service to allow him to build an emergency exit road from the Wintergreen Resort to the Blue Ridge Parkway.
His cause has made significant headway this past year, and last month, Rep. Bob Good, R-Campbell County, introduced the Blue Ridge Fire Safety Act to help things along. The bill “clarifies” that the Secretary of the Interior and the National Park Service have the “authority to grant a permit for the construction of an emergency road on the Blue Ridge Parkway,” according to Good’s press release. Good cited multiple fires in recent years where isolated communities found it difficult to evacuate, including last year’s fatal fires in Lahaina, Hawaii. “Since there were only two ways in and out of the town, many were forced to take refuge in the ocean from the flames,” Good said in his statement. “Ultimately, this fire resulted in 115 deaths.”
The single-lane gravel road at Wintergreen would connect Laurel Springs Drive to the Blue Ridge Parkway, providing the community and the resort a backup in case of a wildfire evacuation. Wintergreen was built with and currently has only one road to serve as its sole entrance and exit. Over the past decade, census figures show that the year-round population around Wintergreen has grown from 156 to nearly 500, not counting visitors.
It seems simple, Sheets said, but the permit process is entangled with environmental studies, and the National Park Service’s chief concern is that new roads aren’t allowed to connect with the parkway — only roads that existed when the parkway was built are acceptable, Sheets said. Granting Wintergreen a permit to build this road could set an unwanted precedent.
A spokesperson for the Blue Ridge Parkway division of the National Park Service declined an interview request for this story, saying the agency doesn’t comment on pending legislation.
Wintergreen has commissioned several environmental studies on a range of issues, covering everything from park safety to endangered species protection to noise pollution. None of the studies’ results have been detrimental to the project’s viability, Sheets said, and the community can work around any restrictions the National Park Service puts in place as a result.
Ideally, he said, Wintergreen will get the permit before Good’s bill even passes through Congress — but the bill could also be what keeps things moving forward. Good’s predecessor, Denver Riggleman, also took up the cause while in office.
“He basically banged the drum so loudly that that is what caused this official permitting process to begin,” Sheets said. “Now, Congressman Good is kind of keeping a light on it and making sure that it doesn’t fall off the edge of the cliff again.”
Good said he visited Wintergreen a few months ago and walked along the spot where the road would be.
“It just seems common sense that this would be permitted, and safety of the citizens and the residents would be primary here,” Good said in an interview. “It doesn’t threaten the National Park System generally just because you’re gonna allow a really noninvasive emergency exit. [It] would only ever be used in an emergency situation … hopefully never.”
Good said he expects the bill to receive bipartisan support from Virginia’s congressional delegation and hopes Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, will sponsor a companion bill in the U.S. Senate. Kaine’s office said he’ll consider the legislation if it comes before the Senate.
One possible solution Sheets proposed is a permit to build all but the last 30 feet of the road. It wouldn’t connect to or even be visible from the parkway, Sheets said. Then, if disaster strikes, they could lay down large mats as a makeshift continuance of the road.
Sheets said Wintergreen has already built a portion of the emergency exit, and it has the equipment and material to finish it. If desperate times call for desperate measures, he’s prepared to lay down the rest of the gravel. While he said park rangers have told him they’ll help Wintergreen in an emergency, someone could still be charged with a felony if the road is connected to the parkway without the permit — that’s the part Sheets is trying to avoid.
“We want to have the road ready so we don’t have to think about how to build it in the middle of the night,” Sheets said. “And we would really prefer it if none of our team needed to be charged with a felony and then have to go to court to defend all of that.”
After spending more than $100,000 on the environmental studies required to build on the parkway’s land, visiting Capitol Hill and meeting with park directors and members of Congress over the years, Sheets said he thinks the decades-long battle could be coming to an end soon.
He expects a decision on the permit in the next six months or so.
“It’s looking like we’re gonna reach a point … where we will have been able to prove, ‘OK, the environmental issues can be mitigated, we can work within the parameters of your permit,’” Sheets said. “So now, it will come down to really just straight-up politics. Are you going to approve this or aren’t you?”
