"Hinton, West Virginia: Same Old Government Land
Grab" - By Tom DeWeese, American
Policy Center, April 30, 2002 (Link to article on APC web site)
After they build their new home in the New River Gorge, Ann and
Bruce Roach discovered that the National Park Service had secret
plans to eliminate all the homes to build a parkway and preserve
the viewshed.
E-mail: Ann Roach, Sisters of the River, Hinton, West Virginia
annroach@roadrunner.com
"Empire State Greenway Rejected by Essex County" - PRFA News Brief, February 2006
Suspicious of more State-imposed land-use controls, the Essex
County Board of Supervisors decided against participating in
the vast Empire State Greenway stretching from the Niagara River
to Lake Champlain, which Essex County borders.
"Rural
Utahns for Local Solutions: New Developments - Heritage Areas"
- By Brad Van Dyke, Rural Utahns Media Release, June 22, 2004
The Heritage Alliance worked out a deal with County Commissioners
who wanted changes in the Mormon Pioneer National Heritage Area
legislation to include resource-based industry instead of solely
crafters, artisans, and tourism. The Commissioners instead were
given a place on the Alliance board of directors.
"Testimony of Bonner R. Cohen, Ph.D. before the
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee
Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests, The Highlands Conservation
Act, 366 Senate Dirksen Office Building,
March 24, 2004"
If the Highlands Conservation Act (H.R. 1964)
is enacted, it will be
harmful for the people in the highlands and their environment.
Carol LaGrasse to Testify on National Heritage Areas
Before U.S. Senate Committee on
March 30, 2004
The Senate Energy and Resources Committee
has invited Carol W. LaGrasse to testify at their Oversight Hearing
on National Heritage Areas on Tuesday, March 30. The Hearing
will be held at 2:30 p.m. in the main Energy and Resources Committee
Hearing Room, Dirksen 366. The Subcommittee on Forests and Public
Lands is the sponsor of the hearing.
"Brief Comments on Erie Canalway National Heritage
Corridor (Abbreviated Transcript)"
- By Peter J. LaGrasse, Chairman, Stony Creek Board of Assessors
(PRFA, December 9, 2003)
Corridor proponents are concealing the extreme limitation
in the protection from liability for owners where trails are
located. The Heritage Corridor is a plan for a total change in
cultural orientation. Local people will not be able to afford
the taxes. If this scheme succeeds, there indigenous population
will not be able to continue to live in the area.
The National Mormon
Pioneer Heritage Area
Latest:
Letter
to Sen. Robert F. Bennett in opposition to the National Mormon
Pioneer Heritage Area Act - by J. Boyd Mickel, a Spring City
Council Member. (September 4, 2003)
Click
Here for additional articles and information.
"National Park Service, Sen. Jeffords Push International
Champlain Heritage Corridor"
(PRFA, November 2001)
Action Alert - June 2001- American Heritage Rivers - Urge President Bush
to Cancel the Program
Sample Letter - American
Heritage Rivers - July 2001
February 2001:
"Corps
of Engineers is Abandoning and Breaching Missouri River Dikes"

See Also


Additional Helpful
Organizations
Free Congress Foundation
Free Congress Foundation is politically
conservative, but also culturally conservative. Their main focus
is on the Culture War. They highlight Judeo-Christian, Western
culture as opposed to the cultural and moral decay of political
correctness.
James S. Gilmore, President
address
and website

Essential Books
& Publications
"Heritage RiversElites
Only," Positions
on Property, Vol.
4, No. 1 (PRFA 1998).
Publication
Order Form

Additional Resources
"Another Federal
Assault on Property Rights: The Journey Through Hallowed Ground
National Heritage Area Act" - Ronald D. Utt, Ph.D., Backgrounder
Published by The Heritage Foundation,
April 18, 2007, http://www.heritage.org/Research/
SmartGrowth/bg2025.cfm
If enacted, according
to Dr. Utt, the Journey Through Hallowed Ground National Heritage
Area Act (H.R. 319 and S. 289) would threaten the rights of property
owners in a corridor encompassing four states. The valuable paper
has much important analysis and shares the viewpoint disseminated
by me for fifteen years that Heritage Areas promote preservation
to serve the interests of the elite while squeezing out the ordinary
local people. Dr. Utt refers to this effect as adding "coercive efforts to upgrade
a region's demographic profile." However,
his advocacy of an alternative approach of pursuing non-federal,
interstate compacts involving a restricted management entity
to preserve heritage while itself prohibited from placing limits
on the use of private property would not overcome the fundamental
problems associated with National Heritage Areas. In New York,
for instance, the performance of the state greenway compact for
the Hudson River is an example where a groundbreaking non-federal
compact indeed is having this negative effect that I predicted
on private property rights and private property ownership, through
not only its own powers, but through myriad influences and interrelationships,
including, later, superimposed federal heritage areas..
- Carol W. LaGrasse

Websites
U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA)
The US EPA is had the official web site about the American
Heritage Rivers Initiative. Among the useful information is a
list of contacts for each of the original fourteen rivers.
http://www.epa.gov/rivers
"Freedom's Fraud"
Stop the Freedom's Frontier National Heritage Area in Missouri
For Freedom and Missouri,
Clint E.Lacy
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In-Depth Information
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- "Rep.
Maurice Hinchey Proposes Hudson Valley National Park Study"
By Carol W. LaGrasse, Property Rights Foundation of America,
January 2010
The significance of the mighty Hudson River as the nation's
first superhighway after the completion of the Erie Canal that
enabled goods to be transported from the Midwest and down the
Hudson to the port of New York o cause New York City to become
the nation's richest city is entirely missed in Hinchey's
vague study proposal, which portrays the important facets of
the Hudson to the nation as its Native American heritage, the
site of Revolutionary War events, the inspiration for the Hudson
River school of landscape painting, and the like.
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"Property
Rights Update from Washington, D.C." - By Jason Knox,
Esq., Legislative Staffer, Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests
and Public Lands, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington,
D.C.; Twelfth Annual National Conference on Private Property
Rights (PRFA, Albany, N.Y., October 18, 2008)
The environmentalists are using legislation against energy
transmission corridors. They're promoting Heritage Areas
and wilderness designations as "economic redevelopment"
while eliminating good-paying jobs. The urban Taunton Wild and
Scenic River is meant to stop a gas pipeline. The 1,082-page
resources omnibus bill would tie up 2 million acres as wilderness,
including 1.2 million acres in Wyoming to stop use of gas and
oil resources. The National Land Conservation System would codify
Clinton/Gore National Monument designations. Right now, focus
on energy. Make your voice heard on land use issues, project
by project. Freedom of Information requests are a powerful tool.
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- "HCF
stands against land pressures" - Opinion by Carol W.
LaGrasse (Reprinted from Register-Star, Hudson, N.Y., March 18,
2008)
The Hudson River Valley is the object of a number of state
and national Heritage Area preservation efforts that would limit
the economic future of this historic commercial corridor of New
York State. In the fact of the threat to close the Hudson Correctional
Facility for budgetary purposes, it is important to realize that
the important prison on the riverbank stands as a bulwark against
the preservationist pressures which the local communities increasingly
face.
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"National
& International Land Use Planning" - Peyton Knight,
Director of Environmental & Regulatory Affairs, The National
Center for Public Policy Research, Washington, D.C., Eleventh
Annual National Conference on Private Property Rights (PRFA,
Albany, N.Y., October 13, 2007)
A National Heritage Area facilitates national land use planning
as a preservation-driven congressional pork-barrel designation
created in conjunction with the National Park Service and private
interest groups to influence decisions over local land use to
preserve natural, historical, cultural, educational, scenic,
and recreational resources. UNESCO World Heritage Site designations
are an international tool to push land use restrictions on the
sites and land surrounding them.
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- "Update
from Congress" - By Jason Knox, Esq., Member of Legislative
Staff, Natural Resources Committee, Subcommittee on Forests and
Public Lands, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C.;
Eleventh Annual National Conference on Private Property Rights
(PRFA, Albany, N.Y., October 13, 2007)
Part of the legislation that Nancy Pelosi would like to ram
through Congress is H.R. 6 to take, Chavez-like, the contracts
of oil companies awarded to drill on the outer continental shelf
during the Clinton Administration. A National Heritage Area omnibus
bill (H.R. 1483) would accomplish the Journey through Hallowed
Ground and Niagara Falls National Heritage Areas, among others.
The Niagara Falls area would involve the National Park Service
in casinos. H.R. 2016 would do away with multiple use in BLM
lands, making billions of acres into defacto wilderness.
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- "Our Stolen Legacy:
The Betrayal of the Declaration of Independence for the Cause
of Landscape Preservation" - By Carol W. LaGrasse, President,
PRFA, July 5, 2007
Government from distant places, fatiguing the people into
compliance; a multitude of new offices and swarms of officers
to harass the people
A government far from the vision
of justice based on all men being created equal, endowed by their
Creator with certain inalienable rights, including life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness. Landscape preservation from the
regional, state, federal and international level takes precedence,
eradicating freedom.
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- Letter to Friends of PRFA -"The
Mississippi River Corridor is Back" -From Carol W. LaGrasse,
June 1, 2006
The Mississippi River Corridor is back - incarnated as the
Mississippi River Trail plan- a 2,500-mile threat to private
property rights from Minnesota and Wisconsin on the Canadian
border to Mississippi and Louisiana on the Gulf Coast.
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- "National
Heritage AreasAn Appearance of Innocence" - By
Peyton Knight, The National Center for Public Policy Research,
Washington, D.C., Speech at Tenth Annual Conference on Private
Property Rights (PRFA, Albany, N.Y., October 14, 2006)
National Heritage Areas are pork barrel earmarks that harm
property rights and local governance. Heritage Areas have definite
boundaries and are subject to a management entity composed of
Green groups and the National Park Service to pressure local
government to enact land-use restrictions. The Park Service surveys
property within the Heritage Area for suitable land for National
Park status.
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"Entering
the Lake Champlain Watershed" - By Susan Allen (PRFA,
May 2005)
During late spring 2004, large highway signs suddenly appeared
that declared, "Entering Lake Champlain Watershed"
and "Entering Hudson River Watershed."
The federally and state funded Lake Champlain Basin Program,
which already has precipitated the regulatory scenic byway and
many other programs, had spawned the Champlain Watershed Improvement
Coalition of New York, which had the DOT place the signs. All
of the signs disappeared late in the summer!
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- "Grants
Have Agendas" - By Carol W. LaGrasse, PRFA November
15, 2004
Government grants put never-ending streams of money toward
preservationist objectives that diminish private property rights.
Prime examples are National Heritage Areas, regional planning,
trails, and government land acquisition.
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- "The
Tourism Trap" - By Carol W. LaGrasse, reprinted from
the New York Property Rights Clearinghouse, Vol. 8, No.
3 (Summer 2004)
Tourism is touted as the economic drive for rural areas such
as the North Country, but it has compelling disadvantages for
a sustained future.
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- "Additional
Comments on National Heritage Areas" - Letter from Carol
W. LaGrasse to Sen. Craig Thomas, U.S. Senate Committee on Energy
and Natural Resources, April 16, 2004
Reply to follow-up letter from Sen. Craig Thomas, April 5,
2004, requesting responses to four questions about property rights
issues related to National Heritage Areas.
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- "LaGrasse
Testifies Before U.S. Senate Against National Heritage Areas"
- Reprinted from the New York Property Rights Clearinghouse,
Vol. 8, No. 2 (Spring 2004)
At the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee oversight
hearing chaired by Sen. Craig Thomas on March 30, 2004, Carol
W. LaGrasse pointed out how this greenway program threatens private
property rights, after the General Accounting Office issued its
report, and the National Park Service and various Heritage Area
officials and experts testified in favor of the program.
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"Could
It Be That the Hudson Valley Heritage Plan is Actually Anti-Heritage?"
- By Nate Dickinson (PRFA, March 2, 2004)
A review of the "Hudson River Valley National
Heritage Area Management Plan." The National Park
Service and its cadre of allied agencies and not-profit organizations
lay the groundworks for a four million acre kingdom of eleven
counties in the Hudson Valley, where resource protection and
land management policies are to be coordinated in a viable regional
plan.
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- "National
Wildlife Refuge Draft Bill Threatens Trenton, NJ, Area"
- By Carol W. LaGrasse (PRFA, February 2, 2004)
Rep. Christopher H. Smith has a draft bill to create a National
Wildlife Refuge for the Hamilton-Trenton Marsh and Crosswicks
Creek. Sportsmen, boaters, and property owners are angry, because
a lock-out except for biologists, birders, canoers, and hikers
would displace the established uses of the area.
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- "The
Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor - Worth Commenting"
- By Carol W. LaGrasse (Reprinted from the New York Property
Rights Clearinghouse, Winter 2004)
The 524-mile long National Park Service Corridor is designed
to displace the current culture and population. It extends from
Buffalo to Albany, then to Lake Champlain, and includes the Cayuga-Seneca
and Oswego Canal regions, totaling 1,834 sq. mi. Eminent domain
is being used to acquire the Erie Canalway Trail. Development
rights for the entire canal were sold to one investor for only
$30,000. The Park Service does expensive public relations but
is short on real information.
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- "Our
Inalienable Heritage" - By Carol W. LaGrasse, Welcome
Address, Seventh Annual N.Y. Conference on Private Property Rights
(PRFA, Oct. 18, 2003)
Taking a look at the ways our rights are being eroded and
setting history back on a path toward justice. Countervailing
the soft-sell, long-term approach of moneyed interests - conservation
easements, scenic byways, heritage areas, trails - the high-sounding
tools of landscape preservation.
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- "Saratoga
County Canalway Trail Shrouded in SecrecyTrail Planned
along Champlain Canal Route through Saratoga and Washington Counties"
By Carol W. LaGrasse (PRFA, October 22, 2002)
The New York State Canal Corporation, National
Park Service, and the New York Parks and Conservation are very
quietly garnering support for an elaborately planned proposal
with federal funding to build an uninterrupted 26-mile trail
along the active and abandoned Champlain Canal route from Waterford
through Saratoga County, to be followed by another 22 miles through
Washington County to Whitehall. The abandoned and active sections
of the canal pass through or adjacent to private houses and backyards,
businesses, farms, and other private property, but the property
owners are not being given information.
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"Oppose Another Federal Land Grab
Vote 'No' On the American Heritage Areas Partnership Program"
- By Gerald B. Solomon, Member of Congress (September 19, 1994)
The successful "Dear Colleague" letter
from Jerry Solomon urging Members of the House of Representatives
to vote against the American Heritage Area generic program. "Secretary
Babbitt has made it clear that funding for the heritage areas
will be conditioned on adoption of land use regulations acceptable
to the federal government."
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- "Statement
of Denis P. Galvin, ... National Park Service, Department of
the Interior, Before the Subcommittee on National Parks,Forests,
and Public Lands, House Committee on Natural Resources, Concerning
H.R. 2949, A Bill to Establish the Augusta Canal National Heritage
Corridor..." - June 28, 1994
Official National Park Service statement in support of the
bill, with recommendation that "designation shall
not take effect until the Secretary of Interior approves the
partnership compact for the heritage corridor." Asked
that the bill be amended to require, among other features, "evidence
of commitment to modify zoning regulations."
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- Land Grab U.S.A.
- by Carol W. LaGrasse, from Positions on Property, Vol.
1, No. 2, Supplement (PRFA, May 1994)
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