Charlie – Page 5 – Everybody Hates Charlie

Nazi Germany, Vemork, and Cumberland Gap

What do the Nazis, a Norwegian hydroelectric plant, and the saltpeter caves of southwest Virginia (including Cudjo’s) have in common?

The ability to make heavy water.

Water contains hydrogen. Normally, the hydrogen in water contains no neutron in its makeup, just a proton. Heavy water, however, contains hydrogen that has the added “weight” of a neutron in addition to the proton, hence the name “heavy water.”

Deuterium is another name for heavy water.

During WWII, Allied forces learned of Nazi interest in a Norwegian hydroelectric plant that also produced fertilizer (specifically, calcium nitrate, or saltpeter). Heavy water, or deuterium, was a by-product.

To Norwegian Resistance fighters during World War II, heavy water was a mysterious substance considered so perilous that they were willing, under orders from the Special Operations Executive in London, to sacrifice the lives of their countrymen in order to keep it out of Nazi hands. – (1) PBS, Nova, “Hitler’s Sunken Secret”

The Allies surmised the Nazis wanted the factory for its by-product of deuterium, which is critical to creating weapons-grade plutonium-239.

I believe the United States knew of the potential of creating fertilizer with hydroelectric power when the National Defense Act of 1916 went into effect.

Col. J.W. Joyes…was instructed to inspect sites [for the location of the nitrogen/fertilizer plant] extending from Roanoke, VA., to certain Alabama sites…(2) 66th Congress, Second Session, War Expenditures Ordnance

The nitrate supply committee recommended this to the 66th Congress:

That the construction of the initial plant be started at once at some point to be selected by the War Department in southwest Virginia or adjoining territory in West Virginia reasonably near to the sulphur, sulphuric acid, and coal supplies of that region. (2)

The hydroelectric U.S. Nitrate plant was eventually built in Sheffield, Alabama with the help of a Norwegian named Berg. (I suspect it is the same Berg who would later be associated with the Vemork plant in his home country.)

Clearly the experts thought President Wilson was misguided when he chose the Alabama location:

Why the President selected the site at Sheffield Ala., for nitrate plant No. 1, contrary to all reports and recommendations, is not known. (2)

I think the President chose Sheffield Ala. to direct attention away from the southwest Virginia saltpeter caves and the real work of munitions production. He visited Lincoln Memorial University in 1918 under the guise of receiving an honorary law degree. (8) It’s certain the trip was actually a visit to the saltpeter/nitrogen operations in Cumberland Mountain, a few short miles away.

It is important to note that TVA was successful at large scale fertilizer production in the Alabama plants (see Dr. Jeremy Whitlock’s statement near the end of the blog post.)

Below describes the way limestone is used to help manufacture saltpeter:

[Nitric] acid can be neutralized with ammonia to form ammonium nitrate or with calcium hydrate to form calcium nitrate (Norwegian saltpeter).

and

…we allow the acid to pass through open towers, filled with limestone, and afterward we destroy the small amount of remaining acid…. (3) Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering, Vol. 24

According to the above journal, this process takes 15,000 tons of limestone, 500 tons of lime, and 2500 tons of soda to produce 29,000 tons of saltpeter.

The November 2001 issue of Virginia Minerals “Geology and History of Confederate Saltpeter Cave Operations in Western Virginia” states:

In the 1860s the southern war machine benefited immeasurably from the conditions of climate, vegetation and geology that gave it the greatest concentration of saltpeter cave deposits in North America. (4)

Luckily for the U.S. Government limestone was abundant in western Virginia as well:

Cumberland Mountain has an extensive limestone cave system on the Virginia side. – Sherpa Guides, “Highroad Guide to the Virginia Mountains” (5)

But the government struck a home run when they discovered a small college named Lincoln Memorial University already had a hydroelectric plant deep inside one of these limestone saltpeter caves: Cudjo’s Cave.

…an active stream runs inside the cave, and was harnessed for drinking water and hydroelectric power. – us-highway.com (6)

It is unknown if it is the same hydroelectric plant mentioned in the 1911 edition of Southern Electrician:

Plans are underway for the erection of a hydro-electric plant for the purpose of supplying power to manufacturers near Cumberland Gap. The plant will be located on the Cap creek.(9)

It is not known if “Cap” is a misspelling of “Gap”.

All three elements needed to produce deuterium are located right here in southwest Virginia: the naturally thriving saltpeter, a catalyst (limestone) that would replenish and produce even more, and the power of hydroelectricity.

I asked Dr. Jeremy Whitlock, a Canadian reactor physicist with decades of experience, how the massive amount of heavy water needed for pressurized heavy water nuclear reactors, or PHWRs, is produced today:

In the future if industrial-scale production is needed again (and I hope it is), we will likely use a catalyzed exchange process attached to an existing process based on electrolysis or hydrogen reformation (e.g. fertilizer production). (7)

SOURCES:

1. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/hydro/water.html#h06

2. http://tinyurl.com/sheffield-nitrate

3. http://tinyurl.com/chemical-saltpeter

4. http://www.dmme.virginia.gov/commercedocs/VAMIN_VOL47_NO04.pdf

5. http://www.sherpaguides.com/virginia/mountains/app_plateau/cumberland_mountain.html

6. http://www.us-highways.com/cgap25.htm

7. Personal email, April 9 2015; copies available upon request

8. http://tinyurl.com/wilson-at-lmu

9. http://tinyurl.com/hydro-electric-gap

The Dinosaur of Bell County, Kentucky

An eyewitness account from the miner who saw the dinosaur fossil:

The time period was approximately fifteen years ago, around 2000. The place: Rock House. The miner worked for a company that did highwall mining, and his job was to place the explosive charges that blew off the face of the rock to reveal the coal.

After setting off one set of charges, his boss radioed him and said “Get up here and get up here now!” The miner decided he had made an error and was about to get chewed out by the boss. But when he got there, the boss said, “Put more charges here, here and here…and do it NOW!”

When the miner looked, he couldn’t believe his eyes. There in the rock wall was a perfect image of a dinosaur- head, body, tail. He said, “It was just like someone had took a can of black spray paint and painted a perfect picture of a dinosaur on the rock.” It was huge.

However, he knew what his boss was thinking- the whole operation would be shut down over this: jobs lost and families left without income. The company would lose millions.

He had no choice but to follow orders: he placed the charges, and within moments the pristine fossil was decimated, never to be seen again.

Although this is not related to the tunnel conspiracy, it is worth mentioning this tremendous loss for Bell County, the state of Kentucky, and the world.

The photo above was taken by Alan Cressler. These are gastropod, or, snail or slug, fossils. Note how the fossils look like a spray painted black design, just like the miner described how the dinosaur fossil appeared. For more fantastic cave pictures like this, visit Alan’s Flickr page here.

Cudjo’s Cave, Cumberland Gap Tunnel, and World Events: A Timeline

UPDATED April 11: the date of 1942 added to reflect the Allied forces discovering the Nazis using saltpeter to make heavy water for nuclear bombs in Norway.

1740- Caves in the western portion of Virgina are mined for saltpeter, also known as nitre, a crucial ingredient in gunpowder

1765-1783 and 1812-1815- The American Revolution and War of 1812. The saltpeter caves in Virginia continue to be a valuable source of nitre needed for the war efforts

1815-1860- Consumption of western Virginia nitre increased so much the caves could no longer keep up: the state had to import nitre to satisfy the demand

1861-1865- The Civil War. If nitre production was going to be profitable for Virginia and the Confederacy in the war effort, they had to find more saltpeter caves and invest capital in their development. The Confederacy established the Nitre Corps (which became the Nitre and Mining Bureau) to this effect. Their efforts were successful; Virginia nitre production easily kept up with the military demands.

–NOTE: Because of their deep underground location, the scattered saltpeter caves were valued by the Confederate military, as they proved to be an elusive target for enemy forces. (1. Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy)

1920- Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate TN purchases Cudjo’s Caverns (one of the Virginia saltpeter caves) from private owners, including the caves known as Soldiers Cave and King Solomon’s Cave.

Although originally separate caves, these two caves “were connected by a passageway and a larger main entrance by blasting and tunneling” although the date this connection was accomplished is unknown. We do know the caves remained separate at least as late as 1937. (2. Thacker, 212)

1939- World War II begins

1940- Congress authorizes the acquisition of land in the Cumberland Gap area for Cumberland Gap National Park, only after language is omitted from the Act calling it a “recreational area” (3)

1941- Pearl Harbor attacked, the United States enters WWII

1942-Allied Forces discover a Nazi-occupied Norwegian hydroelectric plant that also makes fertilizer out of saltpeter. They discover the real purpose of this plant: the production of heavy water, an essential component of nuclear weapons.

1947
-the start of the Cold War

-the title to Cudjo’s Cave (also known as Saltpeter Cave) is signed over to the state of Virginia and eventually transferred to the federal Park. Originally, the saltpeter cave was a separate holding within the National Park.

1954- a Masonic lodge, Martin’s Station Lodge No. 188 opens 1000 feet below Cumberland Mountain in Cudjo’s Cave. 345 Masons are present for the conferring of a Master Mason degree. (4)

1955- Although acquired in 1940, the Park was not opened to the public until 15 years later in 1955. (5)

1972- in November, hijackers threaten to crash plane into the Oak Ridge nuclear complex in Tennessee (6)

1973- Congress tells the National Park to construct the tunnels under Cumberland Gap (5)

1990 to 1991- The Gulf War (Operation Desert Shield) begins, leading to Operation Desert Storm
– Construction of the Cumberland Gap Tunnel begins (5)

1992- the federal government closes Cudjo’s Caverns to the public indefinitely

1996- the Cumberland Gap Tunnel opens. The road to Cudjo’s Cave and over Cumberland Gap is removed soon after.(5)

It is 2015, and only recently did the Park start allowing very limited access to Cudjo’s Cave. See my post here about Cudjo’s Cave.

The federal government has had a keen interest in the saltpeter caves of western Virginia (including Cudjo’s Cave) from the 1700’s. As our government becomes less transparent, it’s hard to ignore the coincidental timing of Congress to act on the development of these caves, the Cumberland Gap area and the Cumberland Gap Tunnel in relation to world events, specifically military conflicts.

Coincidence? Or conspiracy?

Sources:
1. Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy; http://dmme.virginia.gov/dgmr/civilwar_niter.shtml

2. Mountain Mysteries: The Mystic Traditions of Appalachia; Thacker, Larry. 2007

3. Cumberland Gap National Historic Park; Luckett, William. 1964
http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/cuga/luckett/index.htm

4. “York Lodge No. 22 Bulletin”; 2010
http://www.masonsinmaine.org/york22/TB112010.pdf

5. “Cumberland Gap Tunnel marks fifteenth anniversary”; Simmons, Morgon. 2011 http://www.knoxnews.com/news/nation-and-world/cumberland-gap-tunnel-marks-15th-anniversary

6. “Convicted hijacker shares story; details 1972 threat to Oak Ridge”; Welsch, Anthony. 2011 http://archive.wbir.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=170845

How a nun helped prove the nuclear weapons labs have left Oak Ridge

Did you hear about the 80 year-old nun who broke into Oak Ridge with bolt cutters? No, this isn’t a joke.

Consider the glaring examples from this incident that bolsters support for the theory the nuclear weapons laboratories in Oak Ridge have been relocated:

An 80-year old nun, and two men, 63 years-old and 57-years-old, cut their way through the fences and spent hours on the Y-12 facility grounds before finally being arrested.

This is supposed to be the only facility in the United States where weapons-grade uranium is processed and stored. This is some of the most radioactive material on earth.

Clearly neither the NNSA (National Nuclear Safety Administration), NSA, CIA nor the Department of Homeland Security were very concerned about the Y-12 breach. In fact one report stated the trio did trigger security sensors- but these organizations have no answer why the intruders weren’t stopped.

From the Reuters article:

Barfield [spokeswoman for the activists] forwarded a statement from the group in which it said the activists had passed through four fences and walked for “over two hours” before reaching the uranium storage building, on which they hung banners and strung crime-scene tape.

From CNN:

Hours later, the three activists were finally confronted by a guard after hoisting banners, spray-painting messages and splattering human blood on a building that houses highly enriched uranium.

Hours later. Let that sink in. Weapons grade uranium and they are there for hours before a lone guard finally arrests them. Does that make any sense?

I have an answer why they weren’t stopped: there is very little security because I believe there is no weapons-grade uranium there. Why spend resources protecting empty buildings? You wouldn’t, especially as cash-strapped and debt-laden as our government is. It is the only thing that makes sense.

The breach occurred on a Friday. The facility was finally locked down almost five days later, on Wednesday. What took so long?

Someone finally realized, maybe they should act a little more concerned, otherwise, people might figure out there wasn’t anything left there to guard. So almost five days later, they decided to get grave and concerned, temporarily shuttering the plant. From the Reuters article cited above:

“We’re taking this very, very seriously,” added Steve Wyatt, a spokesman for the NNSA office in Oak Ridge, which supervises the activities of Y-12 contractors.

Sure you are, Steve. Sure you are.

Consider this: it’s after the terrorist attacks of 9-11. You are building a new weapons-grade uranium processing facility. You have two choices:

Will you build the new facility aboveground on a campus that everyone already considers the nucleus of nuclear weapon building?
Or are you going to put the facility underground, inside the mountain miles away from where everyone believes it is?

It’s a no-brainer. If data centers are sensitive enough to be put underground post 9-11, then you can bet our nuclear weapons program has gone underground too:

On the demand side, an increase in extreme weather events, heightened concerns about security since 9/11 and the need to provide higher levels of security…have made these spaces more attractive to some organizations. Underground facilities offer security and structural protections that would be cost prohibitive to build from scratch.

A multinational security firm provided the security for the Y-12 site, not the U.S. military.

Multinational security firm G4S, the contractor at the time, had offices in China, Russia, and India, among other places, at the same time they were supposedly guarding our nation’s nuclear weapon complex.

Do you really think our nation’s national nuclear security rests on a company with interests in China and Russia? I hope we haven’t gotten that gullible yet. Again, the simpler answer is, there is no sensitive nuclear weapons building, uranium enrichment or storage going on at the Y-12 site.

Very little media coverage of the security breach at the “nuclear Fort Knox”

An eighty year-old nun breaking into the Y-12 Oak Ridge nuclear complex is a significantly newsworthy event. Yet there was such little media coverage of the event that people in surrounding communities hadn’t even heard of the incident. From Greg Mitchell’s “Nun, Two Others, Sentenced to Prison for Incident at Oak Ridge Nuclear Site“:

There was very little coverage of the trial itself, nothing like the Harrisburg case received four decades ago, and the Knoxville local news and the AP, in their reporting, kept referring to the defendants as the Y-12 trespassers, not the Oak Ridge 3, thereby de-nationalising the case.

Why did they de-nationalize the case and control what the media reported and how much air time the story received? To keep people from realizing the nuclear weapons complex had been moved, like the evidence seems to support.

I am not the sharpest tool in the tool shed. But if I can figure out there’s a real chance our nuclear weapons program has been relocated, I am confident our enemies have already figured it out, too. That means there is a community somewhere close that is now a target…and they don’t even know it.

What’s most disconcerting is this community is at risk of radiation as well as beryllium exposure without their knowledge or consent. (Beryllium is a rare earth metal crucial to the nuclear industry. Although it is not radioactive, in certain persons even the tiniest exposure can be fatal.) People have/had a choice to live and/or work in Oak Ridge. The people where this weapons-grade uranium is now being stored, do not.

Could it be the reason our lung cancer rates and cancer rates in general are so much higher in the 5th Congressional District than the rest of Kentucky, even though smoking habits are the same?

Comparing the Lehigh Tunnel in Pennsylvania with the CGT

The Lehigh tunnel in Pennsylvania

The Lehigh Tunnel carries interstate I-476 under Blue Mountain in Pennsylvania. It’s part of the northeast extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Although the original single tunnel was dug in the 1950’s, the southbound passage of Lehigh Tunnel was tunneled in the early 90s, the same time period as Cumberland Gap Tunnel.

The southbound passage of Lehigh Tunnel is an ideal tunnel to do a side-by-side analysis with as it was built approximately in the same time period and is almost as long as the CGT at close to 4400 feet. (The CGT is 4600 feet.)

Local newspaper article about the Lehigh Tunnel

Comparing the Lehigh Tunnel with the Cumberland Gap Tunnel

And the contract goes to…(the bidding process…or lack thereof)

Lehigh Tunnel- open, transparent bidding process where the contract was awarded to the low bidder, a company out of Chicago. Find the article here.

Cumberland Gap Tunnel- I find no record of a bidding process or how it was determined to award the contract for CGT to Parsons Brinckerhoff, worldwide leader in D.U.M.B. base design

Cost per structure
(keep in mind the figures for the Lehigh Tunnel are for a single tunnel vs the double tunnel at Cumberland Gap- this is accounted for in the analysis)

Lehigh Tunnel– $37.8 million dollars plus an additional $10 million for the portals, a total cost of $47.8 million for one tunnel
Cumberland Gap Tunnel-$280 million for two tunnels, or, $140 million per tunnel

The Cumberland Gap Tunnel cost $100 million more dollars per tunnel to build than the Lehigh Tunnel, for approximately the same distance.

Why?

I am sure the tunnel contractors would tell you “tunnels are like snowflakes- no two are the same”- and therefore you cannot predict the obstacles or ease one might encounter when tunneling. Fair enough.

But note the current proposal on the table for the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission: do away with the tunnels completely and cut a road over the mountains. A consultant to the Turnpike Commission stated, “Annual maintenance costs for a tunnel would exceed…several times what an open highway segment would cost.”

We already had a highway over Cumberland Gap. If the consensus by industry professionals is that a road over a mountain can be safely traveled by tens of thousands of people and save untold millions of dollars in the long run, why did the Feds do away with ours? Why wasn’t our highway widened at a fraction of the cost to taxpayers, making it a safe, viable route over the Gap?

Security and surveillance

Lehigh Tunnel– state-of-the-art 360-degree view IPIX security cameras/ surveillance systems ARE NOT installed in the tunnel
Cumberland Gap Tunnel-outfitted with Oak Ridge-based company’s IPIX “Photobubble” security cameras at several locations at both north and south approaches to the tunnel as well as inside the tunnel spaced approximately 10-15 feet apart. This is a total of between 100-200 security cameras in operation at Cumberland Gap Tunnel. The IPIX company has direct ties to the Oak Ridge nuclear complex (see post here).

Hazmat Escorts and Restrictions

Lehigh Tunnel– hazmat trucks prohibited so there are no tunnel escorts while traffic waits
Cumberland Gap Tunnel-all hazmat materials permitted except explosives. Hazmat material permitted inside tunnel includes radioactive material. The tunnel must pay the cost of several employees to run the hazmat “checkpoints”.

This is the one part of the equation that I’m having trouble reconciling. If there is sensitive equipment or a military installation that they are protecting from terrorist attack, why not just prohibit all hazmat traffic (and therefore potential ‘weapons’)?

One answer could lie in the fact Highway 25E is a “nuclear highway”, or a designated route for hauling radioactive materials through less populated areas to lower the general public’s exposure risk. Below is a screenshot taken from the WIPP Transportation Program that shows not only is Cumberland Gap Tunnel located on a preferred route for nuclear transport, but the route is designated an HRCQ route.

What is an HRCQ route? From Oak Ridge Associated Universities online library:

A “Highway Route Controlled Quantity” (HRCQ) requires Type B packaging, and has certain highway routing limitations and requirements (Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations).

The HRCQ applies to the content of a single package – not to the sum of contents of all packages, i.e., in a shipment which exceeds: (1) 3000 times the A1 value of the radionuclide as specified in §173.435 for special form Class 7 material; or (2) 3000 times the A2 value of the radionuclide as specified in §173.435 for normal form Class 7 materials; or (3) 1000 TBq (27,000 Curies), whichever is least.

In other words, the really dangerous, most highly radioactive shipments are sent down Highway 25E through Cumberland Gap Tunnel.

If the contents of the package being shipped are determined to be a HRCQ, the package must be transported under specific routing controls: (a) The carrier must operate on “preferred routes” that conform to §397.101(b) of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations.

An educated guess is the tunnel was built because 25E is a nuclear highway. They needed a safer route for their enriched uranium coming from the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion plant down Corridor B to Oak Ridge. It wasn’t to benefit our community like they espoused.

And heck, if you’re already letting the worst of the worst radioactive material through, what’s it hurt to let the gasoline tankers go through as well?

Cargo bays and mysterious passageways leading under the mountain

Lehigh Tunnel– No.
Cumberland Gap Tunnel– Yes

The Cumberland Gap Tunnel: One big, fat anomaly

Cargo bays run end to end in Cumberland Gap Tunnel

Cargo bays. A lot of them. Lining the entire length of the tunnel, separating the north and south bound lanes. According to former workers they are rooms, and in these rooms are more doors, leading from one room to the next. It is not a simply a hallway between two ends of a tunnel like you might think.

The ceiling of the southbound side of the tunnel is significantly higher than the north bound side. Is it to accommodate larger military vehicles? Could the tunnel be some kind of “flight deck” or loading zone for fast, efficient loading of arms, even nuclear arms, on military vehicles in times of conflict?

mysterious doors in the tunnel lead deep into cumberland mountain

Little is known about these doors as current employees of the tunnel are forbidden to enter.

Former workers that helped build the tunnel say the door on the right of the northbound lane leads you to the water pouring down inside the mountain that makes up the lake the tunnel is supposedly built over.

The door on the right in the southbound lane leads you to the underground lake itself. This lake has no measurable depth. The former workers weren’t sure of it’s surface area either, for a miner’s headlamp shone across the waters would still not reveal an opposite shore. In other words, it’s big.

Still another door opens to another passage leading into the mountain above the southbound lane in the second story of the tunnel in what I refer to as the administrative section of the tunnel: the office-and-lobby-type areas behind the big glass windows. No one has any information about this passageway, other than the door is often propped open at night, visible when you are entering the northbound side of the tunnel toward Kentucky.

Other than this information, no one knows how much farther these passageways lead into the mountain, or their ultimate destination.

Extensive security cameras in place designed by former Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientists

Ipix is a Tennessee company that makes surveillance cameras capable of projecting 360-degeree panoramic images. This company was founded in Oak Ridge by former scientists from the nuclear laboratory. These scientists’ company initially started working with “recording robots” for use in nuclear plants. But the invention of their PhotoBubbles and 360-degree camera surveillance put them at Cumberland Gap Tunnel, in what they describe as “mission critical imaging”.

IPIX Security is the leading supplier of Full-360 degree video surveillance technology for critical government and commercial security applications.

and

IPIX Security is a division of IPIX Corporation, a leader in mission critical imaging.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ipix-technology-evaluation-successful-us-congressman-sees-national-potential-72240267.html

Congressman Wamp called the tunnel a “critical part of our nation’s infrastructure” and the reason why the expensive, high tech cameras were needed. If this is true, then how much more critical are the tunnels located on major interstates like I-40 and I-77? Yet these tunnels have no security cameras, let alone state-of-the-art cameras invented by nuclear scientists from the Secret City.

Hazmat escorts that seem more for the tunnel’s protection than ours

They make hazardous materials trucks, like gasoline tankers, pull off for private escort when both sides of the tunnel are open and operating normally.

They send the same hazmat trucks through the tunnel with regular traffic when they are working on one side of the tunnel. This destroys the logic that they make hazmat trucks stop for escort for our protection.

Not only do the hazmat truckers have to stop for escort through the tunnel 99% of the time, their records and logs are carefully checked by tunnel personnel while they are waiting.

Procedure for hazmat escort is as follows (table 102):

Trucks that display a hazardous material placard are required to stop at the Cumberland Gap Tunnel inspection lanes. After stopping in the lane, a CGTA operator requests information from the driver such as Trucking Company name and address, DOT #, Truck license #, Truck Order # or bill of lading, origin and destination of goods, and driver’s name and signature. The operator then performs a walk around inspection of the truck and looks for possible hazardous material leaks. Trucks transporting Class 1 Explosives are prohibited and are turned around at the tunnel.

In retrospect, it almost seems like a security checkpoint. For a tunnel on a highway most people in the United States have never even heard of.

Is Cumberland Gap Tunnel Part of a Secret Underground Military Installation?

MENTION THIS TO MOST OF THE LOCALS AND THEY’LL SCOFF AT YOU.

However, a growing number of us are questioning the federal government’s official reason for building the approximately mile-long tunnel: the highway over the mountain was responsible for an average of 5 deaths a year. This will be safer, they said, and it would allow the park to restore Cumberland Gap Trail to the way it looked when Daniel Boone walked it 200 years ago, they lauded.

It appeared the federal government really cared about us. But one of the first negative impacts the tunnel had was on tourism: Cudjo’s Cave, one of the area’s largest tourist attractions, no longer had a road to bring tourists to visit. Essentially whatever economic impact the impressive cave had on the region was suddenly strangled. Fast forward to today: visits to the cave are strictly regulated and only offered a few times a year. They tell us it’s because of white nose bat syndrome.

Mammoth Cave, in south central Kentucky, illustrates how they control and prevent white nose bat syndrome from spreading while keeping their cave open to the public (taken from the National Park Service’s website about Mammoth Cave at http://www.nps.gov/maca/whitenose.htm):

Significant evidence indicates that humans can and have transmitted the fungus from one cave to another, hastening its spread. While no tours at Mammoth Cave National Park enter areas used by colonies of bats for hibernation, bats do occasionally fly through toured sections of the cave year-round.

On the remote chance that you might come into contact with Geomyces destructans spores during your tour of Mammoth Cave, all participants in Mammoth Cave National Park cave tours will be required to walk the length of an artificial turf mat to remove spores and dirt after exiting the Cave. We also ask for your cooperation by washing your hands and changing clothes and footwear before visiting any other caves or mines.

If Mammoth Cave can take precautions to prevent the spread of this disease without turning the public away then Cumberland Gap National Park has a moral and ethical duty to our community to do the same. Thanks to the federal government the future of coal is looking bleak. To counter that, tourism tops the list of Southeast Kentucky’s possible revenue generators…but not if the Feds don’t give us our cave back.

DOES THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT HAVE AN ULTERIOR MOTIVE FOR MAKING CUDJO’S CAVE DIFFICULT TO ACCESS?

Did the federal government remove the road and then begin to use the excuse of white nose bat syndrome to keep the public out of Cudjo’s Cave?

A woman who has spent her life in the surrounding community tells an interesting story about exploring the cave as a child. As a small girl, approximately 50 years ago or so, she and a friend would sneak into the cave to go swimming in the pools of water, which was quite a treat back then. To do this, they would squeeze back behind the stalactites and stalagmites which their small size afforded them. She tells of finding obvious military storage in one of the cavernous rooms: boxes, crates and equipment in a part of the cave that was off limits to the public.

Aside from the cave’s use by troops during the Civil War, this woman’s story is the first indication the U.S. military has had a recent interest in Cudjo’s Cave and Cumberland Mountain. Oak Ridge lies approximately 50 miles southwest in the same mountain chain. This area is littered with hundreds of miles of deep underground coal mines and natural caves. Is it too far a stretch to consider the possibility that Cudjo’s Cave, Cumberland Gap Tunnel and Oak Ridge could be connected?

Parsons Brinckerhoff: a worldwide leader in deep underground military base design…and the contractor behind Cumberland Gap Tunnel.

PARSONS BRINCKERHOFF IS A RENOWNED DESIGNER OF UNDERGROUND MILITARY BUNKERS LIKE RAVEN ROCK AND NORAD. WAS THIS EXPERTISE PUT TO USE DURING THE CONSTRUCTION OF CUMBERLAND GAP TUNNEL?

In the 2010 Parsons Brinckerhoff publication “Tunneling to the Future” the company states (page 15):

During the Cold War, PB pioneered methods for the creation of large underground spaces for military fortresses. The firm’s work in this area began in the late 1940s with the design of a hardened underground defense facility at Fort Ritchie, in the Catoctin Mountains near Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, and culminated in the early 1960s with NORAD (North American Air Defense Command Center), an underground cavern deep within Cheyenne Mountain outside Colorado Springs, Colorado, comprising six huge chambers and several tunnels designed to sustain nuclear attack. Recently, mined caverns have been designed by PB for construction of transit stations or underground storage.

The history of Parsons Brinckerhoff shows they can and will operate in utmost secrecy and will even employ deception to hide the installations they are constructing. In their publication “Parsons Brinckerhoff Through the Years: 1885 to 2012” the company writes about their leading role in the construction of Raven Rock Mountain Complex, a military nuclear bunker near Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania, known as the “underground Pentagon”:

https://www.pbworld.com/book_pub_history/files/assets/basic-html/page84.html

We started design in 1948, under which time the project was under very tight security clearance…we did not even tell our families what we were doing. Once construction started and tunnel muck had to be deposited outside, it was obvious that something very important was under way [sic]. And the fiction that it was a mining operation could not be very long maintained.

That was 1948. It’s logical to assume this billion dollar company’s adeptness at concealing their activities grew with time (and technological advances).

But Parsons Brinckerhoff is not only a deep underground military base contractor- they also design subway tunnels, bridges and other public transportation systems like high speed rail projects.

the lead engineer at NORAD, Thomas R. Kuesel, was also the lead engineer at Cumberland Gap Tunnel

Kuesel’s most important job at NORAD was to design a way to reinforce rock to withstand nuclear attack. It is quite noteworthy that the same engineer responsible for the integrity of one of the United States’ most strategic underground command centers was later sent to work on a simple twin tunnel bore through a mountain for a highway that runs through small towns and villages. A highway that sees significantly less traffic than I-75, which is 45 miles away. Why was it so important that Kuesel be in charge of the Cumberland Gap Tunnel project?

S.A. Healy Inc: The subcontractor at Raven Rock Mountain Complex was also the subcontractor at Cumberland Gap Tunnel

A 1951 newspaper article from Gettysburg TImes indicates S.A. Healy is continuing work on the underground installation known as the “Little Pentagon” despite recently announced cutbacks in defense appropriations. See “Work Goes On at Little Pentagon“ , Gettysburg Times. November 8, 1951.

We already know of Parsons Brinckerhoff’s role in the development of Raven Rock, and the Gettysburg newspaper article proves PB has worked with S.A. Healy before on underground military installations.

Parsons Brinckerhoff’s, S. A. Healy’s, and Kuesel’s involvement in the tunnel construction is not a smoking gun that the tunnel is an underground military installation. Kuesel was involved with hundreds of other projects that had nothing to do with the military or defense, and the same goes for the tunnel subcontractor S.A. Healy. However, it is with certainty and accuracy that we can say the companies chosen for the tunnel construction certainly had the credentials, expertise, technology and prior experience to carry out construction of a deep underground military base in southern Appalachia at Cumberland Gap.