HAUBSTADT — After spending all 85 years of his life in the same Gibson County farmhouse, Elmer Schwiersch was not eager to hand over his family's property.
He had lived there for his whole life. It wasn't for sale at any price," said his son, Larry Schwiersch.
"But that wasn't an option."
The state of Indiana had to have it. The house, a nearby barn and the surrounding acres sat directly in the final route the Federal Highway Administration had approved for Interstate 69's Indianapolis-to-Evansville extension.
Leaving that house — one that still served as a base for the family farming operation — standing was not an option.
So, in 2009, the Indiana Department of Transportation bought it and dozens of acres nearby. It was one of the first land acquisitions made as the path was cleared.
One section — the piece nearest Evansville — is mostly completed. INDOT broke ground on the second section last week, saying Wednesday that it believes it remains on pace to see the highway's extension from Evansville to the Crane warfare center — that is, the extension's first half — by the end of 2012.
With Indiana's timeline accelerated and plans falling into place in the Southern states the highway could one day reach, lengthening I-69 could mean far more than a quicker route from Evansville to Indianapolis and back.
For now, the fertile farmland of rural Southwestern Indiana is ground zero.
Land buyers are moving north toward Bloomington. Construction crews are following closely behind, clearing land and trucking in fill dirt as they prepare to lay 142 miles of new highway.
Ushering in a massive new project, though, means a disruptive end to what has been a largely undisturbed way of life passed through generations of family farmers.
"It just so happened the week before we closed on the property, that's when Dad passed away," Larry Schwiersch said.
The right-of-way purchasing efforts have posed problems for the younger Schwiersch as well. The highway literally will run through his front yard. The view out his front door today is of freshly hauled fill dirt and construction trucks.
"That's a pretty sore spot. Before this, I looked out at the sunset, and everything was peaceful and quiet. Now we're going to have interstate traffic 150 feet from my front door. That's not something I'm looking forward to," he said.
His issues aren't all cosmetic. He complained that some recent farmland sales were being included as officials tabulated the price of their offer, but other comparable sales were excluded for reasons he never understood.
He said bureaucratic hang-ups that blocked lines of communication between his family, through the contractors doing the buying on the state's behalf, and to INDOT.
"We had made an attempt to counter some of their offers, and from what I understand, those never made it to the people at INDOT making the decisions," Schwiersch said.
"You never actually spoke to anyone from INDOT. You were separated by at least two layers."
Larry Michel, 57, has farmed an area near Fort Branch his entire life. One of the fields he tends is a mile from his house. But I-69 will cut between his house and that field, and he said he'll have to travel at least five miles to reach it.
But his biggest concern, he said, is drainage. He said he is watching closely to see how the state deals with potential drainage problems along Pigeon Creek.
He said the fact that I-69 will cut diagonally across squares of farmland as it heads southwest is a source of frustration, too.
"I can see a use for" the highway, he said. "But it's very detrimental to the agricultural sector because it's going through farms at an angle instead of directly parallel to farms."
Kenneth Stunkel, who sold 13 acres of his Gibson County farmland for $79,000, said he is dissatisfied with the deal he received.
"We didn't get enough per acre to buy another acre on auction anywhere. I can't go out on an auction somewhere and buy acre-for-acre what I got from the state."
Stunkel described the process of dealing with the state as "bad" and said thinking of it still leaves him angry.
"I'm trying to put it behind me and not worry about it anymore."
That sentiment was echoed by more residents of rural counties, such as Gibson and Daviess, whose farmland the new highway will traverse.
"There's not a whole lot to be said about it. They come in, they make you an offer," Schwiersch said. "But it's not simply an offer. It's the price, unless you want to go to court."
Thus far, most land purchases have been handled outside the courtroom. That doesn't mean some property owners didn't consider a legal fight, though. Schwiersch said the obstacle he encountered was gathering enough information to weigh his options.
"The appraisers we talked to so that we could get an alternate appraisal wouldn't give us the time of day," he said. "They didn't want to get involved in a fight with the state; they were afraid they'd get blackballed."
Schwiersch said his family, still coping with Elmer's death, ultimately was not prepared to endure the headaches that would come with suing the state.
"There was just so much coming at us at that time that a lawsuit wasn't something we wanted to get involved in," he said.
Several farmers who were interviewed said casual conversations with appraisers led them to believe they were being low-balled by the state. However, those farmers declined to identify the appraisers.
The Indianapolis-to-Evansville I-69 extension is divided into six sections. Section 1, just north of Evansville, has been under construction, and two new miles of highway are already open.
Ground is slated to be broken on Section 2 in the coming months and was broken on Section 3 on Wednesday.
Sections 5 and 6 are further off, as state lawmakers still must find a way to fund their construction.
A draft environmental impact statement for Section 4, which reaches from the Crane warfare center to Bloomington, is expected to be completed late this month or early in August, with a public hearing to take place in late August or early September.
So far, INDOT has purchased 209 of the 615 parcels of land it has identified in the first three sections as necessary to acquire the right-of-way to build the highway.
In doing so, Indiana has spent $20.3 million. Another $69.7 million is budgeted for the remainder of fiscal year 2011, which began July 1 and ends June 30.
The process of land acquisition works in several steps:
Once property is identified as necessary for a project, geotechnical and environmental testing takes place over a two- to three-week period.
The property is surveyed, a title report is ordered, and an abstract is prepared and finalized, a step that takes three weeks.
An appraisal takes place, either at a time the property owner agrees to or from the road. The appraisals are completed by state-licensed contractors, and an INDOT-certified appraisal is produced.
Then, a review appraisal is conducted, and both reports are sent to INDOT for approval. The steps, combined, take about two months.
A buyer contacts the property owner on behalf of the state to discuss the land deal. After an offer is made, the property owner has 30 days to accept it or reject it and go to court.
"At this time we feel we have been fair to all property owners throughout the right-of-way acquisition process as well as continuing to be a good steward of the taxpayer's dollars," said Cher Goodwin, an INDOT spokeswoman whose focus is on the I-69 project.
After the land purchases are completed, construction can begin.
The state has awarded six contracts thus far for I-69's construction, including three in the first section near Evansville and three in the third section, which approaches Crane.
The six contracts the state has awarded thus far add up to $152.9 million — a total that is 30 percent below the total cost that environmental impact statements predicted for those six portions of the highway extension.
That is a primary reason Gov. Mitch Daniels accelerated the construction timetable.
Progress in Kentucky
Indiana's extension has been years in the making, but it would push the interstate only 142 miles of the 1,660 miles or so it would need to be lengthened to reach from Canada to Mexico.
The first step toward extending I-69 south of Indiana must be a bridge that can link its route east of Evansville across the Ohio River to Henderson, Ky.
Already, the two states have a joint commission to discuss bridges. The first project on that panel's list is building two new bridges spanning from Clark County, Ind., to Louisville, Ky. But both states' governors have said they hope the commission will eventually discuss an I-69 bridge.
"Here in Kentucky, we feel like this is a real opportunity," said state Sen. Dorsey Ridley, D-Henderson.
"As you look at these interstates across the United States, you see the economic development that occurs adjacent to these interstates."
Ridley said the legislation Kentucky passed last year will allow for bonding authority to pay for a future Henderson bridge. He said Kentucky would likely repay those bonds, at least in part, by collecting tolls — something Western Kentucky natives already are used to, he said.
After a bridge connecting the east sides of Evansville and Henderson, I-69 would connect to an existing network of parkways in Kentucky.
It would first use the Pennyrile Parkway, with the Audubon Parkway considered a "spur" much like Interstate 164 is a spur that connects Evansville with Interstate 64 now.
Once the Pennyrile Parkway reaches the Madisonville, Ky., area, I-69's route would continue onto the Western Kentucky Parkway to Eddyville, Ky. Then it would switch to Interstate 24 to Calvert City, Ky., and finally, to the Purchase Parkway to the Tennessee state line.
Ridley said signs identify those areas as the future route of I-69.
Furthermore, eight projects identified as I-69 corridor improvements, for a total of $51 million, are included in the state's current biennial budget.
U.S. Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., has requested federal funding for portions of I-69 in Kentucky, and Ridley said he thinks the state's declared commitment to the project will enhance its standing as Congress considers transportation funding requests.
Ridley credited Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear with making I-69 a priority.
"He has moved this thing forward very rapidly," Ridley said.
Moving south
After passing through Western Kentucky, I-69 will move through western Tennessee and into Mississippi, Arkansas and Texas.
In Tennessee, conversations remain in the planning stages. A public hearing was held in April to discuss I-69's eventual extension, and officials in the state are now studying alignment possibilities. A timetable for finalizing plans and starting construction is not yet set.
Though the signs aren't up, a 21-mile piece of what is eventually slated to become a piece of the I-69 route already exists near Memphis, Tenn., along a stretch of already-existing highway.
The state's transportation department chief attended a news conference in Memphis with representatives of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials earlier this month as the organization released a report, titled "Unlocking Freight," that highlighted the need for the I-69 extension through the South.
Plans for the future I-69 are progressing rapidly in Mississippi, where a final environmental impact statement — that is, the definitive study that indicates where the road will be located — was completed this month.
A short stretch of I-69 is already completed in northwest Mississippi, south of Memphis. Next up will be construction of the 120-mile portion for which plans were recently finalized. No timetable has been set so far.
In Arkansas, state highway department officials say their 185-mile, $1.7 billion stretch — the route the Federal Highway Administration approved in 2006 — is being built slowly and will take many years unless the federal government is willing to provide a heavy dose of financial assistance.
Officials there won't speculate on a timetable. Eventually, the road could stretch to Texas, where it would enter somewhere around Texarkana. There, a company that has worked on designing some parts of the I-69 route in the area has proposed building an electric, elevated rail system to haul freight along the route.
In Texas, from Texarkana, I-69 would wind along the Gulf Coast on the state's southeastern side past cities such as Houston, and eventually cross from Laredo, Texas, into Mexico.
Only then, with every step along the way completed, could it reach "superhighway" status, connecting North American Free Trade Agreement countries of Canada, the United States and Mexico.
Gridlock a problem
Extending I-69 to the south might not be the only work that is required in the coming years.
According to the Federal Highway Administration, even without any extensions, the existing highway's truck traffic — about 6,500 trucks per day right now — will grow to 19,000 trucks per day by 2035. The number of drivers using the highway each day is projected to triple, as well.
The rush-hour gridlock is already rampant on the northeast side of Indianapolis, where the highway is the only way to get downtown for those who live in communities such as Noblesville.
The Central Indiana Transit Task Force has suggested building express lanes, which motorists would pay about $1 to use, along the highway in Marion and Hamilton counties. It's an idea already in use in major cities such as Houston, Miami and San Diego.
The task force has recommended shifting $21 million from other transportation projects to pay for express lanes, though that idea might be unpopular, as Indiana already has postponed some projects that were slated, prerecession, for coming years.
INDOT spokesman Will Wingfield said the task force's study is a serious one and that the state tries to address heavy congestion where it exists.
That, he said, is among the reasons why I-69 is being extended in the first place.
"There are significant areas of congestion along those two-lane roads that exist now," where I-69 will run in the coming years, "with cars waiting behind a coal truck that's moving slower than another vehicle might," he said.