AOYC: It’s time to turn up the heat! FHWA In Favor of Building Freeway!

from https://aoycblog.wordpress.com/2015/03/13/its-time-to-turn-up-the-heat-fhwa-in-favor-of-building-freeway/

March 12, 2015
On March 5th, 2015, the Federal Highways Administration (FHWA) released their Record of Decision (ROD) in favor of building the South Mountain Freeway. The ROD is a document that gives the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) the approval to begin acquiring right of ways and to begin construction of the 22-mile-long freeway that blasts through three ridges of Moadak Do’ag (South Mountain). Moadak Do’ag is sacred to all O’otham tribes and holds cultural significance to eighteen other tribes.

This project has been opposed by members of the Gila River Indian Community since the 1980s. There are numerous harmful impacts of freeway construction which include destroying the prehistoric villages of Villa Buena and Pueblo del Alamo, the destruction of threatened/endangered animal habitats, and the destruction of plants that are central to traditional O’otham culture. Environmental impact studies of the 202 freeway also state that the habitat for wild horses in Gila River would be irreversibly lost if the freeway is built, and that no alternative habitats for the wild horses exist. One of the Gila River Indian Community’s entertainment destinations is named after the wild horses that the freeway would destroy if it is built. The path of the approved design also would destroy many groundwater wells, with no replacement wells planned for by ADOT. It is for these reasons and many more that in 2012, the Sierra Club named the South Mountain freeway one of the worst transportation projects in the United States.

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