By BETH QUINN

TRAIL - Tom Sutton of the Federal Highway Administration points to the naked earth where a grove of trees once stood.

"We cut every one of 'em down. Now, if that was in front of your house, wouldn't you be pissed off?" he asks.

Around a few bends in the road, the $3.2 million road construction project cost an Elk Creek rancher an old blacksmith shop.

"The county paid for the damage to their land, but sometimes it's not the money that's the compensation," Sutton says.

For Sutton, building a road is as much about public relations as it is about asphalt.

"If they have a problem, I have a problem. These are my landowners out here. I look out for them," he says. "I can relate to what they've lost."

Most Elk Creek Road residents opposed the reconstruction of 4.6 miles of their remote rural road, but they praise the project engineer overseeing the job.

"Bless his heart, Tom is trying. He is really, really trying," says Linda Smith. "He knows everybody by name. He knows what their problems are."

The problems range from coping with the loss of trees, fences and gardens to coping with blasting that creates noise, dust and traffic delays.

Add to those expected irritations such surprise headaches as cut water lines and disconnected telephones, and Sutton has a recipe for righteous indignation.

But the big man with the quick smile and the thread of an Appalachian birthplace in his voice doesn't mind hearing from irate landowners. In fact, he invites those calls by publishing his telephone number every week in a newsletter that he mails, faxes and hands out to local residents.

"As soon as I got local here, I got to publishing the little newsletter," he says. "Doing things like that, working with an individual rather than a federal government-type thing, you can build relationships."

Building the road may be the ultimate goal, but for Sutton building relationships is the first step.

So Linda Smith has most of her trees, and when the project's done, she'll have a realigned and safer driveway.

"They've been so good," she says. "They're just doing a real good job."

Farther down Elk Creek Road, the highway project skirts Paula Nork's ranch for a mile and a half and wiped out the smithy. She didn't want the road, but she's not bitter and doesn't blame Sutton.

"It's not Tom Sutton's fault," she says. "The people that are in the construction crew and the federal people are all trying their best to make it work."

Making it work may mean moving a stake to save a tree that doesn't absolutely have to go or erecting a temporary fence to keep silt and rocks out of the creek.

Some believe the $700,000-per-mile price tag and spacious roadway still seem wasteful of dollars and land, but with Sutton's help, residents of Elk Creek Road have made peace with the project.

"It's pretty ugly, and it's pretty noisy, and it's pretty dusty," Nork says. "But by and large, they're pretty nice."

Sutton's built roads for the federal government in Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and Oregon, but no matter where he works, he employs the same approach to his job: "Getting along with people, and getting the job done."