Amish community tries to stand in way of interstate construction

The superhighway will cut through an area of Amish farms.
PLAINVILLE, Ind. (AP) -- Sunday dinner has been a tradition at the Stoll family farm for six generations. Children and grandchildren arrive on foot or by horse-drawn buggy, traveling a quiet gravel lane to a white farmhouse steeped in the simplicities of Amish culture.
Family gatherings for the Stolls -- and an entire way of life -- are about to get more complicated. The southwestern Indiana farm lies in the path of an interstate project approved in March by the Federal Highway Administration.
The 142-mile extension of Interstate 69 from Indianapolis to Evansville is part of the planned four-lane NAFTA Superhighway. Backers say the highway, which will bisect the central United States as it connects the Canadian and Mexican borders, will bring prosperity to economically deprived regions and promote trade.
But in this 136-year-old Amish settlement, the fourth-largest in Indiana, residents would prefer progress -- and the highway -- find another path.
"I don't like the noises and fumes off one of these," said Eugene Stoll, 59, a bricklayer and farmer who still works the land his great-grandfather purchased in the 1860s. "I want to be left alone. That's what the country's for."
Stoll's Daviess County farm is one of at least a dozen that could be cut off from the rest of the Old Order Amish settlement by I-69.
Residents have fought the route for years. In 1998, when the state outlined proposed routes for the expansion, 692 people -- about half the community -- took an unusual step in Amish culture and signed a petition opposing the route.
"We do not understand why it is necessary to do such great harm to our settlement and to our way of life," the petition stated. "Nor do we wish such harm on our non-Amish neighbors."
Many fear the interstate will decimate the landscape and complicate farm chores. They worry about its impact on socializing in a community where few residents have telephones and in-person communication is critical. Even church meetings could be disrupted: The gatherings are in people's homes, and the benches must be transported each week by horse-drawn buggy.
Pledging sensitivity
J. Bryan Nicol, secretary of the Indiana Department of Transportation, said state officials are sympathetic to the community's concerns. Overpasses and underpasses will be built for the Amish to cross the interstate, and the department will open an office in the next month so community members can make suggestions about access to the road, he said.
"We have to be sensitive to the concerns and the issues to access as it regards to the Amish community, and that's something we're committed to do," Nicol said.
Though many residents and environmentalists would prefer to see the highway built elsewhere, Nicol said the route through the Amish community was chosen because it would have less impact on the environment than others that were studied.
The chosen route also goes near the Crane Naval Surface Warfare Center and Bloomington, home to Indiana University. State officials say it will cut 27 minutes off the driving time between Indianapolis and Evansville and put 37,000 residents within 30 minutes of major urban areas.
By 2025, transportation officials estimate the I-69 extension will generate $3.5 billion for the state's economy and create 4,600 new jobs.
Ron Arnold, executive director of the Daviess County Growth Council, said the interstate could help many of the Amish whose businesses make up the majority of the county's annual $23 million tourism industry.