When John and Carmen Mueller went to college in southern Indiana, they used to drive through Brown County, hoping that one day they would be able to purchase a few acres of land.
Eight years ago, they did just that. Living in a cabin about a mile from Mountain Tea State Forest, the Muellers have enjoyed the peace and quiet.
“We worked very hard our whole lives to settle down here and retire down here,” John said. “We came down here to be left alone and to leave everybody else alone.”
But a state project could potentially disrupt the peace. The Indiana Department of Transportation proposed a $7 million project to widen and pave Pumpkin Ridge Road, a one-lane gravel road that leads to Mountain Tea State Forest.
The Indiana Department of Natural Resources denied a request for an interview but said in an emailed statement that it aims to make travel safer and improve access to the forest.
In a video made for a public meeting on the issue, Project Engineer Nick Batta said the road hasn’t been publicly maintained for years.
“The current roadway does not meet contemporary standards even for a low-speed recreational access road today,” Batta said. “As you can see, the area is very wooded and the existing roadway has a lot of curves to it that will need to be brought up to modern standards.”
A controversial proposal
Officials and citizens have debated the plan at Brown County Board of Commissioners meetings over the last few months. The decision to approve the project has been tabled after commissioners and citizens expressed concerns about the impact on homeowners and the natural environment.
Currently, Pumpkin Ridge Road is about 16 feet wide. Because of the narrow road, Batta said, cars need to pull off to the side to let an oncoming vehicle through.
The current plan proposes a 22-foot, two-lane road with two-foot shoulders on each side. The project could allow the state to exercise eminent domain, which allows the government to use private property for public use. The Fifth Amendment allows this only if the government provides just compensation to property owners. For Mueller, over five acres of the 235 he owns could be taken away.
But Mueller is more worried about campers potentially trespassing on his property, which borders Mountain Tea State Forest. The park has primitive camping; there are no amenities like bathrooms and electricity. Mueller has already cleaned up trash from campers in the past. He’s concerned that a paved road will bring in more traffic and potentially more trash.
“We already pick up trash that’s left behind,” Mueller said. “You put this big road in, you direct more people back there, and when they have to use facilities, when they have to clean up, when they have waste, what are they going to do with it?”
Chris Tuttle, who has lived on Pumpkin Ridge Road for 10 years, said while he’s open to change, he’s worried about water erosion issues and potential invasion of privacy during construction. He also doesn’t mind having a gravel road.
“We wouldn't let the blacktop be something that would necessarily bother us,” he said. “We like the gravel only because we can maintain it. We can sculpt it, and it's easier in the wintertime to come up these steep hills.”
Don Owen moved next door to Tuttle three months ago to escape city life in Indianapolis. While he initially thought paving the road would be a good idea, the additional traffic it could bring is unappealing.
“I like the road the way it is right now,” Owen said. “My wife likes it less. But I know as soon as I turn off Hoover Road onto Pumpkin, it just seems to relax me.”
Owen and Tuttle are also concerned about how much damage road construction could cause to the trees and species in the area. Part of their land could also potentially be taken to expand the road. Tuttle is afraid the county might take more land than it anticipated for the project.
“It steals the right of the landowner,” Tuttle said. “It's not a necessity to have this. It is used generally throughout the United States as something for a necessity to make changes within a local community. Now this isn't a necessity. This is no different than a woman choosing the different rouge that she might use when putting on makeup.”
Lack of transparency
People living in the area are concerned about what they say is poor communication from the state on the project. Only a few homeowners, including Mueller, received a postcard from the state in the mail in February notifying him there would be a public meeting in May to discuss the project. He didn’t hear anything else until then.
Tim Clark, president of the Brown County Board of Commissioners, said he was surprised by the scope of the project when he first learned about it in March, saying the proposed road is “pretty unusual” for Brown County.
He also says the process has lacked transparency from the state. Clark is working on an email list to inform the community of any updates and when public meetings occur.
“We'll do as many meetings as we can,” he said. “If we need to, we will have special public meetings where we do nothing but concentrate on what's being proposed and all the issues around it. There's no rush on this. There's no deadline. We're here to spend as much time as we need to get the right decision for everybody.”
Clark said the state has acknowledged that it can reduce the scope of the project, but he has yet to receive new proposals. Once the commissioners agree on a plan, they will sign a contract.
Mueller would like to see the state spend money on improving dangerous crossings and intersections in the area instead.
“As a taxpayer, all of our wages are involved in this; I expect the state to spend money more wisely than this,” Mueller said. “I do support the improvement of that road for the residents back there. They've been maintaining it for years with little to no help. They do deserve an improved road, but a $7 million road is ridiculous.”
The Muellers, Tuttle and Owen think a paved road will take away the ruralness Brown County offers.
“You're going from one paved road onto another paved road, and you take away the adventure,” Carmen said. “If you're taking kids back there, it's kind of neat to get on a gravel road and be like, ‘Oh, what are we going to see? What are we going to explore today?’”
