206 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY 



public interests can be seen in the signs of petroleum companies and 

 automobile dealers along Interstate 95 in Virginia, along the New 

 Jersey Turnpike, and in my own State of Connecticut along the 

 Merritt and Cross parkways. A particularly objectionable instance is 

 the Howard Johnson billboard in Milford on the east bank of the 

 Housatonic River, which is visible more than a mile away in Strat- 

 ford! No scenic easements should be paid for to eliminate these 

 abuses. 



The 1,000-foot standard (no signs within 1,000 feet of the high- 

 way) for billboards and signs along interstate highways is not an 

 adequate or appropriate yardstick. A visibility test is needed. Any 

 sign which is visible from an interstate highway or parkway is pre- 

 sumptively a trespass on the highway. It impairs public invest- 

 ment in the highway. It is a trespass on public property. It should 

 be dealt with as a trespass, as an unlawful device to appropriate and 

 to destroy community values created by public investment. 



Scenic easements also represent public investments. They should 

 be employed only to reimburse property owners for values inherent 

 in their property, and not created by public investment which are 

 foregone in order to create or to preserve community values. No 

 property owner is entitled to compensation, or blackmail, to prevent 

 a private appropriation or destruction of values created by public 

 investment. No property owner has a right to use his land for bill- 

 boards which trespass on the property and values created by a public 

 investment in a highway. 



Injunction suits and Federal zoning authority adequate to pro- 

 tect Federal investments in parks, in highways, in national monu- 

 ments, etc. are the appropriate legal instruments to protect public 

 investments from being appropriated and destroyed by private 

 interests. 



GEORGE J. EICHER. The American Fisheries Society would like 

 to make a statement with respect to highway and freeway construc- 

 tion. 



Too often freeways are constructed without thought of access to 

 fishing and recreational areas. Not only is it often difficult to leave 

 such freeways in the vicinity of recreational areas, but frequently such 

 construction cuts off preexisting routes and renders such areas 

 inaccessible. 



We urge that future highway planning take into consideration 

 access to fishing and other recreational areas. 



