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900 W. Main St.,
PO Box 690 Grangeville, ID 83530
Phone: 208.983.1200 |
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| Supporters call tourism dollars' loss "progress" |
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| Letter - Inghram |
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Supporters of converting U.S. 12 into a mega-load industrial truck route claim this conversion would bring needed jobs to the area. The Idaho Transportation Department says just the opposite on their own Web site. Their Northwest Passage Scenic Byway Corridor Management Plan states the scenic byway plays a major role in what ITD cites as a $149 million annual tourist industry in North Central Idaho. Yet ITD appears willing to risk the jobs and revenue associated with that industry along with the gas and sales taxes it adds to the state's revenue base, while Idaho subsidizes some of the largest international corporations in the world.
If North Central Idaho's tourist industry suffers just a 10 percent decline because of the conversion of Highway 12 to a high and wide mega-load trucking corridor, Idahoans will lose $15 million annually. At a $5/bushel wheat price, a 20 percent decline in tourism would be the financial equivalent of a 56 percent crop failure of all winter and spring wheat harvested in Idaho, Lewis and Clearwater counties in 2009. The next year's crops might recover, the damage to the tourism industry would be long lasting.
Many Idahoans would likely call such a crop loss a disaster. The supporters of the big rigs call a loss in tourism dollars "progress."
Janice Inghram
Grangeville
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