National Trust names energy corridor on most endangered list

Corridor ranks fifth on 11 most endangered historic places list Washington, D.C. - America’s priceless heritage is at risk—from the storied waterfront of Brooklyn to the neon-clad mom-and-pop motels of Route 66—some of America’s most irreplaceable landmarks are threatened. This year marks the 20th listing of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places. Since 1988, the National Trust for Historic Preservation has used its list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places as a powerful alarm to raise awareness of the serious threats facing the nation’s greatest treasures. Right in middle of that list were “historic places in transmission line Corridors, Va., W. Va., Md., Pa., N.Y., N.J. Del. n Seven states n many of them in the Mid-Atlantic region.” The Trust judged that those states “are waging battles to protect everything that’s irreplaceable about their communities as massive 150-foot tall, 75-foot wide high voltage transmission lines are planned that will blight historic landscapes and usurp private property rights. Proposed lines would cut through private land, publicly held open space, neighborhoods, historic sites, historic districts and magnificent viewsheds.” List sites spanned the nation. In Idaho, the hallowed remnants of a World War II-era internment camp are at risk due to planned expansion of an adjacent large-scale animal feeding operation, while in New Mexico, a pristine portion of the 16th- century El Camino Real—the oldest Euro-American trade route in the United States—faces a very 21st century threat; the proposed development of a Spaceport. Meanwhile, budget cutbacks are also wreaking havoc on historic resources across the country: In Missouri, shortfalls at the U.S. Forest Service have imperiled more than 70 historic structures at Mark Twain National Forest, and in California, sacred structures at Stewart’s Point Rancheria—home to the Kashia Pomo Indians—are sliding into disrepair due to chronic funding inadequacies at federal Tribal Historic Preservation Offices. These are just some of the 11 sites the National Trust for Historic Preservation named earlier this month to its 2007 list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places. “The sites on this year’s list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places embody the diversity and complexity of America’s story, and the variety of threats that endanger it,” said Richard Moe, president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. “The places on this year’s list span the continent and encompass the breadth of the American experience. Each one is enormously important to our understanding of who we are as a nation and a people.” This year, the Trust celebrates the list as one of the most effective tools in the fight to save the country’s irreplaceable architectural, cultural and natural heritage. The list, which has identified 189 sites through 2007, has been so successful in galvanizing preservation efforts across the country and rallying resources to save one-of-a-kind landmarks that in just two decades, an astounding 52 percent of the sites have been saved and rehabilitated. While the fight is not over for many of these historic places, only 6 sites have been lost since the Trust launched the 11 Most Endangered program. Sites on the 2007 list include: • Brooklyn’s Industrial Waterfront, N.Y. • El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro National Historic Trail, N. Mex. • H.H. Richardson House, Brookline, Mass. • Hialeah Park Race Course, Hialeah, Fla. • Historic places in transmission line corridors in seven states • Historic Structures in Mark Twain National Forest, Mo. • Historic Route 66 Motels, Ill. to Calif. • Minidoka Internment National Monument, Jerome County, Idaho • Philip Simmons’ Workshop and Home, Charleston, S.C. • Pinon Canyon, Colo. • Stewart’s Point Rancheria, Sonoma County, Calif. For more information, visit www.nationaltrust.org/11most/20th.