It appears the Lake Jackson Ecopassage or "turtle crossing" in Tallahassee has finally come to pass.
Over 9 years ago, a graduate student from Florida State University, Mark Aresco, turned his passion for turtles into a political cause, a cause to help save turtles. What is the Lake Jackson Ecopassage you ask? It is a passage under Hwy. 27 which will save turtles who normally try to cross the road to get from one side of Lake Jackson to Little Lake Jackson, or vice versa.
Over the course of time, there has been a lot of funding in studying the issue, but little follow-through on the construction of the ecopassage as we have always waited on generous Uncle Sam to come through with federal dollars.
Synopsis:
In 2002, former Leon county commissioner Dan Winchester (and neighbor of Aresco) supported Aresco's cause and estimated the project at "several hundred thousand dollars."
In 2003, the Florida Department of Transportation approved a $100,000 study of the issue.
In 2005, the Capital Region Transportation Agency approved 3.4 million dollars to start a three-month environmental study of four culverts tunneled underneath a one-mile stretch of the highway.
In 2006, the Leon County Commission approved another $60,000 project study and sought 4.5 million dollars in federal funding. $450,000 was also contributed from the Florida Department of Transportation for design work.
In 2007, the 4.5 million dollar structure was designed but still not funded.
In 2008, it was on the county's wishlist at a 5 million dollar price tag.
In 2009, the pricetag reached 6 million dollars and there still was only temporary fabric fencing to direct the turtles to the one culvert running under Hwy 27. After how much money was already spent? Temporary fabric?
Enter the 787 billion dollar stimulus package passed by our Congress, and passed without one person reading the final bill. Passed at the expense of our children who will end up paying for this ecopassage because our country is over 11 trillion dollars in debt, 783 billion of which is held by the Chinese government in US Treasuries.
If anyone gets a job as a result of this "stimulus" project, will you please let me know? Hey maybe we can hire some of the recently laid off teachers here in Leon County. Or one of 200+ FSU employees cut or about to get cut? Or one of the 80 City of Tallahassee employees who may be getting laid off as well?
All of this for a little turtle that is.
Are you fed up yet?
Sources:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/06/17/turtles.vs.taxpayers/
http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/26867/
http://www.lakejacksonturtles.org/
http://crtpa.org/html2/ecopassage04.htm
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Thursday, June 18, 2009
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The ecopassage is a really good project, for drivers and taxpayers as well as for wildlife. Read more at http://hslf.typepad.com/political_animal/2009/06/ecopassage.html
Anonymous, since my comments have yet to appear on the blog above, let me recap:
1) It is not a project endorsed by the local citizens as evidenced by the comments from local residents in our local paper, http://www.tallahassee.com/article/20090622/CAPITOLNEWS/906220311/Officials+defend+eco-passage
2) There is already a culvert under the road probably 8 ft tall that the animals can be directed to.
3) Why spend so much? You already have the tunnel. Now the wall (to prevent the animals from crossing the road and to direct them at the same time to the existing culvert) is the only thing left to be built. Hardly a 6 million or 3.4 million dollar effort.
I am a local resident of Tallahassee with a BS in Biological Science. I am not against animals or for modifications where necessary, but are millions of dollars necessary when a tenth of the dollars would accormplish the same goal?
Of course the project is endorsed by local citizens. Both the city commission and leon county commissioners hold seats on the Capital Regional Transportation Agency. The CRTPA voted unanimously to support the ecopassage. The City Commissioners and County Commissioners are elected officials. Obviously, they speak for the people. If a tenth of the money could be spent to correct the problem, it would be done. The government is not out to spend more money than they have to. The longer we delay the project, the more it costs. As an aside, the $3.4 million figure given above for 2005 is not correct. Unfortunately, feasibility studies, design studies, etc are a necessary requirement to be eligible for funding. These are in place as a check against unwanted spending. The government doesn't want to fund unnecessary projects until a need is proven. The Lake Jackson Ecopassage has met all of these requirements and therefore qualified for stimulus money. The system is less than ideal but this is what it took to prove the need for an ecopassage along US 27.
Anonymous-
Just because a person is elected by the people, it doesn't mean those people support the policies of that person. Just ask our president whose personal approval ratings are in the high 50s but policy approvals are in the 40s. It is no different here with local politics.
So the government doesn't want to spend more than necessary? Right. Is #2 above not a viable and less costly option?
As far as the rest of your comments, we can just agree to disagree.
Anonymous, could you post from an actual account? I'd like to engage you on some of what appears to be irrelevant information on the first article you posted, but it's difficult to provide a decent rebuttal without copy and paste options.
The article indicates that there were 46 human casualties occurring from motor vehicles crashing into wildlife across all of florida from 94-03. How many of those were from this particular section of highway 27, and how many have occurred since 2003? Isn't the tunnel already up, but we're just debating about adding a wall to it? How many human casulties since then?
I'm guessing it's nada or next to nothing since the author felt it was necessary to provide a misleading statistic (one that references all of florida's human casulties from collision with wildlife rather than specifically this section of highway). Have any casualties been caused by the lack of a tunnel on this roadway at all?
Would it cost more to simply create another roadway or destroy this section of roadway and create a larger bridge?
You guys are wacked! I'm looking at a project started years ago under a Republican governor and you cast the wasted spending in who's direction?! no wonder the conservative right is lost...maybe they need a tunnel to get across the long road ahead!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-markarian/florida-turtle-tunnel-pro_b_218084.html
Read this, ignorant jerks.
MMM LIKE ME SOME TURTLE MEAT
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