Dissent builds with I-69 proposal

EVANSVILLE -- Hoosiers have sent hundreds of e-mails commenting on the proposed Interstate 69 project and turned out en masse to sometimes-heated public hearings on the subject.\nDozens of others have mailed letters with their opinion on whether the highway from Evansville to Indianapolis should be built, and if so, where it should run, said Michael Grovak, study project manager with state consultant Bernardin, Lochmueller & Associates Inc.\n"I'm really pleased with not only the amount of comments we're getting, but the quality," Grovak said Monday. But it is too early to determine any trends in the public opinions expressed, he said.\nIt is also too soon to tell if the state will take the comments seriously, said John Moore, attorney for the Environmental Law and Policy Center.\nJames McDowell, a political science professor at Indiana State University, said he has his doubts on how seriously the state will take the public comments.\nPublic backlash, however, at a hearing in Bloomington against using primarily new terrain for the highway could convince the state to take a closer look at a proposed route using existing Highway 41 from Evansville to Terre Haute and Interstate 70 east from Terre Haute to Indianapolis, McDowell said.\nMoore and other environmentalists have accused the state of being biased against the route, which was listed last month as being non-preferred in an environmental study done by the state. The route scored poorly on factors such as travel time, freight movement and economic growth.