[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 50 (Thursday, April 18, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H3621-H3622]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              FINALLY, CORRIDOR H FOR WEST VIRGINIA REGION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from West Virginia [Mr. Wise] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WISE. Mr. Speaker, I want to talk today about a project that is 
very important not only to my State of West Virginia but indeed to this 
entire region, and that is corridor H.
  Corridor H is a major four-lane road that has been on the books for 
25 years and that we have been trying to build in West Virginia. The 
environmental impact statement after 6 years has finally been 
completed, and the public comment period begins on April 26 and will 
extend for 30 days. This is a time for citizens and groups and 
businesses and all those individuals who want to have another say and 
want to review the EIS to do so.
  This EIS has been 6 years in the making. It has been one of 
contention. It has been one in which the State department of 
transportation has had to meet and accommodate many, many legitimate 
concerns: environmental, historical, terrain, cost. After a long time 
the State took four corridors and narrowed it down to a preferred 
corridor, and then within that 2,000-foot way the State has now 
accommodated the various concerns that have been made, whether it is a 
Civil War battlefield or whether it is a stretch of wetland.
  After being in the Department of the Interior for a number of weeks, 
all questions about boundaries for historic battlefields have now been 
resolved. The Federal Highway Administration

[[Page H3622]]

has signed off on corridor H and will review it, of course, again 
following the environmental impact statement. At that time, probably 
within the next few months, it will issue its final record of decision, 
or ROD. Then following that, the State can begin real estate 
acquisition and appraisal and, hopefully, go to bid at the end of the 
year.
  I say this because corridor H is probably the single most important 
highway project, not only for West Virginia, but, I think, for this 
region of the country; 114 miles in West Virginia that are so crucial 
to not only opening up the eastern part of our State to the west but 
also then being a natural corridor that continues on out as once people 
get to Weston and then can continue north and then west toward the Ohio 
area or south and then west to Kentucky and points west.
  Corridor H, I believe, is economically feasible. Indeed, the 
Appalachian regional studies demonstrate that countries that have a 
four-lane corridor of this magnitude see job creation three times that 
which is projected in counties without such a project.
  This is a major east/west highway, and so my hope is that we can, 
with this completion of the environmental impact statement, I realize 
this is not going to make everyone happy, but with the completion of 
this environmental impact statement that we can get on about the 
business of building corridor H. It has been too long in contention, 
and at least in the West Virginia section it is important that this 
highway be completed and so to complete the Appalachian corridor system 
that has promised so much to our State.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to keep you up to date on this 
important project as it moves ahead. I encourage everybody to be 
involved in the public comment period, and I look forward to seeing 
this project actually go to bid sometime at the end of the year in the 
segments that have already been approved and where these issues have 
been resolved.

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