Letter: What we need is already here

I wish to respond to a letter posted by Sue Elsperman on February 26 about the proposed Mid-States Corridor. She said “it is a generational investment in the long-term health, quality of life, and resilience of our communities. After decades of analysis, planning, and waiting, we now have an opportunity to secure transportation infrastructure that will support families, strengthen industry, and expand opportunity for years to come.”

That’s a big promise, but there are simply no facts to back it up. The decades of studies for a highway since the early days she refers to have never identified a real need for any of the alignments, and they have always been widely opposed.  In fact, during the past 40 years, Jasper and the surrounding communities have continued to thrive without a highway or many of the problems they transport.

I think we all pretty much agree that Jasper has so many wonderful amenities, it’s hard to name them all. Numerous walking trails, an amazing museum, an art center to be proud of, an award-winning hospital, great schools, a community college, plenty of businesses and industries, residents with diverse backgrounds, and many more.

However, it’s important to remember that Jasper is more than its boundaries. Indeed. Jasper’s strength is also dependent on the many small towns and the farms and forests which surround it. There are two incorporated cities in Dubois County: Jasper and Huntingburg. There are also three incorporated towns, including Holland, Ferdinand, and Birdseye. In addition there are quite a few unincorporated towns in the county and many more around the local region including Ireland, Dubois, Celestine, St Anthony, Crystal, Hillham, Cuzco, Haysville, Portersvile, Schnellville, Duff,and many others spread over a wider region including Santa Claus, St. Meinrad, Dale, Mariah Hill, Kyana, New Boston, and many more in other surrounding counties and all of them are unique. These small towns are connected with productive fields and forests, linked by state and county roads in all directions.

Clearly, Jasper’s success is dependent on much more than what exists within the city limits. Median incomes throughout the County are higher than state averages, and it has consistently maintained one of the lowest unemployment rates in the state. Dubois County’s population at the last census was about 43.600, and Jasper’s was about 17,000. This growth has been slow over the years and fairly manageable.

As Mark Nowatarski succinctly pointed out in a recent letter, Jasper is a great place to live, not because of highways, but due to “quality of place.” This quality of place we already have is not based on money, but more realistically on the co-operation and hard work of the people who live in the entire region, the small towns and farms which surround all the towns and cities and hold it in place. In addition, this entire region is blessed with a good source of water and much fertile soil, which, if not paved over or otherwise compromised, will be of greater importance than money in the future.  There are only so many resources in any region, and to ensure a future for the next generation will require recognizing that Jasper is already at an optimum size and has optimum resources for maintaining a good quality of life.

 It’s notable that the many studies over the years, including the Donohue study in the late 1980s, which considered US 231 as a possible route for I-69, as well as the most recent Lochmueller study, have identified no real need for this route. However, if the Mid-states-Corridor were to be built, countless homes and businesses would be sacrificed, huge parts of the countryside would be irreparably lost, and it would greatly diminish the quality of place which makes this region so outstanding.

In this wildly unpredictable and uncertain world, we need to consider the good things we have, many of which are intangible. We need to see through the empty promises of building a wildly expensive truck route designed to enrich a few in Jasper, but which would divide the county in half and funnel our wealth away, even as it brings chaos to those who live here. We need to focus on maintaining our local roads, which connect us to each other, as we work together to nurture the high quality of life that we have created and enjoyed for generations. 

What we need is already here.

Jeanne Melchior
Jasper