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Landslide Impeding Popular Recreation Area Stirs Economic Concerns

aerial photographs of the slide from a helicopter while out surveying elk and moose in the region

A landslide in a popular area of the Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming's western mountains has locals worried about the region's economy.

 

Moist soil from heavy snowfall was set free by an earthquake in early February, resulting in a landslide 17 miles outside the town of Alpine. The Greys River Road was destroyed and the slide, which is still moving is now encroaching on the river.

 

Mary Cernicek is public affairs officer for the Bridger-Teton National Forest. She said the Forest Service has every intention of opening the road as soon as it’s safe to do so.

 

“There is a quarter-mile of that road that no longer exists and so once we figure out the mountain has actually stabilized, and we can look at what’s in place,” said Cernicek. “Is it some sort of re-route? Is it removing soil and building a new road? How is this going to look?”

 

The forest service has yet to nail down a timeline, Cernicek said, because the slide is still moving. And as the snowpack begins to melt, she said, there’s the potential for the situation to get even worse before it gets better.

 

“We do have a lot of people who are wondering: why we can’t we just go in there and push the dirt off the road? And it’s quite the concept to get your mind around,” said Cernicek. “The road no longer exists. It’s been pushed away and there are big crevices in the ground. What remains is liquid soil.”

 

But Alpine businessman Richard Jenkins said he’s holding the Forest Service to that commitment to reopen the road, because he’s worried about his town’s economy.

 

"We have a huge amount of snowmobile traffic, recreational use, skiers, that plus the summer recreation, that bring a lot of economic value to the town of Alpine and to Star Valley, and that is just plan going away."

 

Jenkins said he would like to see the Forest Service moving faster on a plan to reconstruct the road.

 

Tennessee -- despite what the name might make you think -- was born and raised in the Northeast. She most recently called Vermont home. For the last 15 years she's been making radio -- as a youth radio educator, documentary producer, and now reporter. Her work has aired on Reveal, The Heart, LatinoUSA, Across Women's Lives from PRI, and American RadioWorks. One of her ongoing creative projects is co-producing Wage/Working (a jukebox-based oral history project about workers and income inequality). When she's not reporting, Tennessee likes to go on exploratory running adventures with her mutt Murray.
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