Help Save Kentucky's Red River Gorge Region!

Help us to save one of Kentucky's greatest natural treasures, the Red River Gorge region from being permanently altered! 

A large scale resort development project created by Red River Economic Development (RRED) has the potential to permanently alter the area with the proposal looking at three sites and ranking a privately owned 891-acre site in Slade adjacent to the Mountain Parkway as the highest. The project seeks to do the following:

• Attract 1-2 million visitors to an area already struggling with an overload of tourists during the high season.
• Seemingly give control to a small group of outside banks, developers and politicians to control development around the resort on what looks like a minimum 10-mile radius. And, they justify a need for control so they can attract private investment to their resort. This top down control gives no consideration to the existing community of mom and pop businesses, residents, ecotourism offerings and organizations that live in and love the Gorge.
• Develop an 891-acre property that contains at least 17 natural rock arches and of which there is a possibility of Native American burial sites, which could potentially be protected by the Archaeological Resource Protection Act.
• Develop a 20 acre retail outlet/village alongside the rest area, at Slade. Slade is already a village! We don't need another one!

The size and scope of this resort far exceed the capacity and character of the area's limited infrastructure, public services, and labor force. There are concerns that this large scale construction may have an environmental impact on local river systems, endangered and threatened species and neighboring private properties. The local community has been kept in the dark with sparse communication.

We are a group of mostly local businesses and residents that has formed to oppose this project and we are reaching out to the global Red River Gorge community because we need your help in opposing this outsized project. The deadline is quickly approaching for RRED 's purchase of the property and hiring a firm that will conceive a master development plan. If you feel the project will permanently alter the nature and character of the beautiful Gorge, please sign this petition and share it!

Join us!

Members of Red River Gorge united

Contact with concerns to:

Mike Berry / Ky Tourism Cabinet  502- 564-4930

Holly M. Johnson / Secr. Ky Dept of Finance & Adm 502-564-4240

Albert Robinson / Honorable Senator 502-564-8100 x 604

David Hale / Honorable Representative 502-564-8100

Andy Barr / Honorable Congressman 859-219-1366

Andy Beshear / Honorable Ky Governor 502- 564-2611

Asli Watts / President Ky Chamber of Commerce 502-695-4700

Tom FitzGerald / Ky Resource council 502-875-2428

Hubert Sparks / A.R.C Inspector general 800-532-4611