I’m Sam Adams, and I’ll be the voice from the ether on this blog.
I would call myself the new VISTA for The Head of Three Rivers Project, but I’ve been here since November. You haven’t heard from me before because I’ve been busy being new. Now that I’m not new anymore, maybe I’ll have time to tell you what we’re up to up here in the high mountains of eastern Kentucky.
We have two new projects underway to address economic development, one of the organization’s core goals. The first is a plan to clean up pollution we’ve found in Fishpond Lake and create an RV park or cabin site in the process. We’ve submitted an application to the Appalachian Regional Commission for money to do a feasibility study, and we’re waiting to hear back from it.
The bigger project is a trail system around Whitesburg, Kentucky, that will connect the city to the Great Eastern Trail. If all goes as planned, we’ll have a side trail to let hungry hikers get to real food and soft beds. There will also be a hiking and biking trail connecting two of the outlying communities to town, a connection to the still-developing downtown historic district walking tour, and a water trail where people will be able to canoe on the North Fork of the Kentucky River.
We had our first meeting about the trail system last night, and local residents seem pretty excited about it. I’ll keep promoting it as the year goes on. We may even have some events centered around the trail system. In fact our first event is Saturday, depending on the weather.
If it’s pretty out, we’ll canoe from Southeast Community College’s Whitesburg campus to UZ. We plan to take GPS and a map and begin surveying the river to determine what’s in store for us in developing the trail. We’ll give away free redbud trees courtesy of Tour Southern and Eastern Kentucky from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. that day.
Posted by Sam