I learned that $3.4 million of federal stimulus money is being used to build a tunnel to help turtles cross a Florida road. Look at that face.
How could you not spend a few million bucks on a face like that?
Do we hire a couple green turtle loving people to guide the turtles thru the tunnel?
How can we rely on turtles to know where the eco-hole under the eco-tunnel is positioned?
Hey, I’m just the new green guy wanting some logical understanding here. Help a green brother out.
You know I did do my homework on this and found out they did the same thing at Paines Prairie in Gainesville, Texas and it cut back thousands of killed animals a year to under 200 or something. I think its a good idea, people always swerve when they see animals, it causes accidents (not to mention, people that never stop). Plus, the turtles were here first.
This eco-tunnel is just one of the projects in Florida that federal stimulus money will fund. Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma says he has scoured the stimulus list and found 100 questionable projects like Florida’s Eco-Tunnel project.
The tunnel will be built to keep turtles and gators off US-27 in Leon County and supporters say it will also protect drivers.
“When you got 30 and 40 pound turtles as large as a manhole cover and 12-foot alligators crossing a highway it is a public safety issue,” said Cliff Thaell, Commissioner-at-large of Leon County.
The White House issued a point-by-point rebuttal to Coburn’s report and the White House proved tracking all of the spending is not easy.
It defended spending $2.2 million on a project in Montana, but that project is not being funded with stimulus money.
Now, we have got to hire a couple people and make sure these turtles know where that hole is so they don’t crawl up on the road. Here’s the ad I placed today in the Miami paper.
CLASSIFIED AD: Miami Daily Tribune
Wanted……..Persons (2)to attend to and reposition misdirected or lost/confused turtles over newly constructed turtle bridge. No bathing or feeding required! Hours of employment: Depends on tidal schedule. Pay: Depends on prior turtle experience. Vegans only!
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Vivian Hooton
on 18 Jun 2009 at 7:50 pm
As I started to read I was wondering about the ‘gators. Near Eglin AFB in TX we had to stop numerous times for the alligator to get out of the way. Wondering who/what is more important these days for the stimulus pkg, People, Housing, Animals!
Russell Price
on 29 Jun 2009 at 10:08 am
It is more difficult to get the facts straight on all of the purposely obscure itemized expenditures made by Stimulus Bill administrators than the background on unauthorized charges made on a stolen credit card. One’s attention was quickly drawn to a check written during the Obama spending orgy for a Tallahassee turtle tunnel.
Notice is quickly drawn to the dubious expenditure by the hyper-passionate and absurd arguments made in support of the ridiculous expenditure.
Government representatives, feeling the heat from the light of public scrutiny after nationwide news reports revealed the turtle tunnel details, have become as convincing as Johnny Cochran in their defense of the project.
Taxpayers are told, “If the tunnel fits, you must remit.”
Loosing obvious public support for the $3.4 million dollar tunnelbahn designed to insure safe passage for turtles and frogs from one lake to another, public safety is now threatening to push turtle safety out of the limelight as the main reason for the tunnel.
Without evidence of a single turtle caused automobile accident report, government representatives have become more creative than Star Trek conventioneers, by offering interesting anecdotal evidence of the potential dangers of unfettered turtle forays.
One government spokesman employed the use of shocking visual imagery to sway public support by suggesting that collisions with turtles could create flying projectiles that could come crashing through driver’s windshields.
Adding to turtle crossing folklore, a local county commissioner suggested the nightmare scenario that a driver could collide with a 40 pound turtle, creating in the reader’s mind, the same impact as hitting a Wyoming boulder.
Emboldened by official pronouncements describing driver impalement by turtle shells and collision impact with turtles the size of Wyoming boulders, “green” supporters have added additional animals that might choose to avail themselves of safe passage through the long dark tunnel, which will run under a four lane highway in the highly developed Florida capital.
Black bear and white tailed deer are said to be planning their “trip tic” through the passageway even though the entry point may detract from its appeal since it will be located next to a liquor store. Will the Sasquatch be added to the herd next?
No one doubts that the cars colliding with wildlife is a real problem around the country, but not at this location.
Very few people are against reasonable efforts to prevent innocent wildlife mortalities, but at what expense? Based on the hard evidence presented by the F.S.U. doctoral student twho spurred the dream for the turtle tunnel, the passageway would save approximately 2000 turtle fatalities per year. If the tunnel saved 100% of all turtle deaths, which no one thinks will happen, the cost per turtle life over 10 years is $340 per turtle.
Blind support for unreasonable projects only confirms what critics of government waste intuitively know in the pit of their conservative stomachs; do-gooders like to do a whole “lotta” good when they are using somebody else’s money. There is no end to the creative ways they can conjure up to spend it.