EARTH SYSTEM SCIENCE, MAMMOTH CAVE NATIONAL PARK, AND THE PROPOSED KENTUCKY TRIMODAL TRANSPARK

The proposed Kentucky Trimodal Transpark (KTT), presently envisioned as a 2100-acre industrial complex to be served by air, rail and truck, is to be located in Warren County, Kentucky. The site, which emerged as the best choice among eight sites considered is, in fact, the location preordained in the 1998 Budget of the Commonwealth, which provided $6 million in seed money for the project. It is located entirely on a karst plain about 20 km southwest of Mammoth Cave National Park (MCNP). MCNP is a World Heritage Site, a United Nations designated International Biosphere Reserve, and contains the worlds longest mapped cave system. This park is under constant threat from contaminated groundwater and is considered to be the third most air polluted U.S. national park.

Our review of the site selection process exposes a strategy lacking in an earth system science approach. Subsequent ad hoc engineering and geologic studies on the selected site funded by the Intermodal Transportation Authority (ITA), the group appointed to oversee transpark development, further illustrates the need for a thorough investigation of all potential pathways of exposure.

Kentucky's Environmental Protection Cabinet has identified mitigating the region's haze problem as a top priority. The federal EPA in its May 2003 annual report under the Clean Water Act added two of the county's principal streams, the Green River and Barren River, to its list of impaired waterways.

The potential deleterious effects of fully developing the proposed KTT have not been studied adequately. Groundbreaking is scheduled for October 2003 even though a federal environmental impact statement (EIS) has not yet been conducted. By phasing the project in 240-acre increments, and limiting initial development to the industrial park, it is clear the ITA intends to delay the EIS and proceed without full knowledge of probabilities for irreparable harm to sensitive ecosystems, and worsening of the region's air and water quality.

We present errors and omissions in basic geological and environmental characterization of the site to date. Consultants' scant geotechnical data presented to assure developers that there will not be costly karst collapses are assumptive rather than objective as no reconnaissance drilling or geophysical survey was conducted prior to site selection.