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Heath Shuler Now a Bad Politician Too

Horatio

By Horatio
in The Tailgate

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Horatio

Horatio

Posted
Posted

He was a lousy QB, now look at this:

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2008/aug/14/shuler-tva-swap-land/

N.C. congressman Shuler, TVA swap land

U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler, D-N.C., on panel that oversees federal agency

By Josh Flory (Contact)

Thursday, August 14, 2008

TVA has approved a water-access deal for a development group whose investors include U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler, D-N.C., who sits on a committee that exercises oversight of the federal utility.

On June 3, TVA CEO Tom Kilgore approved a transaction that provides 145 feet of water-access rights along the shoreline of Watts Bar Reservoir in Roane County to an entity called The Cove at Blackberry Ridge LLC. In exchange, The Cove agreed to relinquish 150 feet of water-access rights in Rhea County and also provide approximately $15,000 for a bank stabilization project at a different location on Watts Bar Reservoir.

Investors in The Cove at Blackberry Ridge include Shuler, a first-term Democrat from western North Carolina who is a former star quarterback for the University of Tennessee football team. Shuler sits on the House transportation committee's Subcommittee on Water Resources and the Environment, one of two congressional panels that provide formal oversight of TVA.

A financial disclosure statement filed by Shuler for 2007 showed his investment in The Cove fell in a range between $5 million and $25 million.

The Cove is a waterfront development located in Roane County on a peninsula northwest of the Dogwood Shores community. Jason Rudd, president of the Highlands Development Group, said that firm actually owns the property, while an entity called the Highlands Property Group owns 50 percent of the Highlands Development Group. Rudd said Shuler owns 80 percent of the Highlands Property Group.

The access swap was aimed at paving the way for a 10-slip community dock that would accommodate 20 boats and include a boat-launching ramp. Rudd said Shuler did not participate in any negotiations with TVA regarding the water-access trade.

As a member of Congress, Shuler has leaned on TVA on environmental issues. During a 2007 hearing, he asked the agency how it would reduce air pollution that enters the Great Smoky Mountains National Park from TVA power plants. Kilgore, told the legislator that TVA planned to install a new scrubber at its plant in Rogersville.

Shuler also helped lead opposition to the Road to Nowhere, a long-delayed road through the national park that had been proposed to replace a thoroughfare that was flooded by the creation of TVA's Fontana Dam in the 1940s. The road now has been scrapped in favor of a monetary settlement for Swain County, N.C.

Buff Crosby, TVA's senior manager of land and water stewardship, said that under a shoreline management policy approved in 1999, TVA aims to allow about 38 percent of the 11,000 miles of shoreline in the valley to be open for residential development.

Crosby said that if a user wants to build a boat dock but doesn't have access rights, they can apply under the agency's "maintain and gain" program to trade access rights they own somewhere else on a reservoir.

"So what you're doing is giving up access rights in one location to get them in another location," Crosby said. "And the maintain and gain (policy) says that we're going to have no net loss and preferably a net gain of public shoreline."

According to figures provided by TVA, Blackberry Cove is the eighth maintain-and-gain application that has been approved since 1999.

In an environmental assessment of the Roane County deal, TVA staff determined that the cumulative impacts of the action would be insignificant.

"Due to the very small area affected by the proposed boat dock facility and ramp and due to the amount of unencumbered shoreline remaining on the adjacent properties, approval of this proposal would have a minimum impact on the wildlife and other environmental considerations," the assessment states.

The assessment does indicate some discrepancies between the two properties that were involved in the trade. The document states that the Rhea County land where the developers gave up water-access rights - dubbed "Area B" - "fronts a shallow shoreline and is essentially a mud flat during a large portion of the year. This situation renders the shore inaccessible to the back-lying property except at the summer pool elevation. Area B is steep and inaccessible."

By contrast, the document states that the exchange property "does have deep water, even during the winter drawdown months."

A letter sent to TVA by the development team, though, indicates that it is the Rhea County property that has deep water and the Blackberry property that fronts on a shallow shoreline.

Rudd said the Roane County property is a mud flat during a large portion of the year and the Rhea County property has deep water and that he thinks TVA flip-flopped the properties when writing its assessment.

"We're in a cove, and when they draw the lakes down, unless you're in a real deep-water cove, you don't have water a lot of the year," he said. "I think TVA misstated that in the environmental assessment."

Hayden Rogers, chief of staff in Shuler's congressional office, said the lawmaker "wouldn't have used any position he has in Congress to influence TVA or anyone else." Asked if Shuler has ever discussed the matter with the agency, Rogers said, "Not that I'm aware of."

Shuler was elected to Congress in November 2006 and, according to documents provided by the development group, efforts to obtain the access rights for Blackberry Cove predate his election by more than a year.

Rudd said a TVA map initially indicated that the Roane County property already had dock rights and that the property probably would not have been purchased otherwise. Gil Francis, a spokesman for the agency, said that map was a draft and contained an error.

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asknoquarter

asknoquarter

Posted
Posted

I agree about it being in the tailgate...

I am from asheville, NC and he only got in because everyone was so PROUD of him, give me a break.

This is ridiculous he has been terrible from the get go.

The Outer Banks of North Carolina have recently had sections essentially shut down because some tree hugger saw a rare bird for the area (a bird that lives in parking lots in New Jersey) These people in California have been sewing and anything else they can do to "protect" these birds they have been killing foxes and other birds to make sure these piping plovers live.

Well the only chance the area of Cape Hatteras has is the Government to step in and fix this. The Senators for NC got together and made a bill or whatever to counter this and open the beaches back up so people can walk or fish on them.

I called Shulers office to make sure he was for it, and quickly found that he is an extreme tool and is in waaaaayyy over his head. (just like when he tried to play QB) He had no idea what the story was and was opposed to the bill.

what an idiot

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