RRGU’s Position Statement

Kentucky’s Red River Gorge is a natural masterpiece, a stunning and humbling landscape that provides our state with a pristine wonder that is one of the most beautiful places in the United States if not the world. No less than National Geographic Magazine recently described the region as “stunning rock formations, including more than 100 natural arches and 900 miles of sandstone cliffs, pierce the canopy of the Red River Gorge.”

But much in the Gorge could change under a proposal for a $135 million luxury resort that could forever alter this amazing place. 

We are Red River Gorge United (RRGU) and we are not opposed to new economic development in Eastern Kentucky, provided it is in-scale with the Red River Gorge and region that surrounds it. Thoughtful new developments that do not add unbalanced stress to the already-limited resources of the region are welcomed with open arms. 

However, the proposed Slade resort development has a footprint too large to exist without inherent damage and disruption to the fragile economic and environmental systems that already exist. It is our belief that a concentrated and corporate-minded development of this large scale can only exist in this region at the expense of aging critical infrastructure, erosion of small-town character, degradation of natural resources, increased safety concerns, and other negative fallout resulting from over-trafficking by entitled and careless visitors. 

In short, the region just cannot support a development of this size and type at this time, and we believe this project should be relocated.

It is for these and many other reasons that RRGU opposes the proposed Slade resort development as well as any other proposed developments that are simply out-of-scale and out-of-touch with the existing resources, infrastructure, available local workforce assets, and real-world needs of the region. Any new developments of such impactful size would be mindful to utilize a community-minded approach for planning instead of the “top-down” approach which has been seen so far and which has left many community members feeling left in the dark.

We can only hope that RRED and others behind this development have the best intentions in mind for this project. However, perhaps this tourism generator will be better suited for, and more warmly received in, a different Eastern Kentucky county. Many eastern counties have seen a more-significant loss of coal jobs than the Gorge region’s four counties (Lee, Menifee, Powell, Wolfe). The expressed intent of the project’s original study in 2013 was to replace coal jobs and RRGU fully supports this directive when thoughtfully administered.

Review our positions on various parts of RRED study here >>>
Learn more about the proposed resort development here >>>

  View a full list of RRGU's positions on each part of the RRED-sponsored Stantec report