My earlier post on how $3.4 million in “stimulus” money is being used by the Florida State Department of Transportation to build an eco-passage for turtles elicited a humorous response from a “shell-shocked” Florida resident, Russell Price, a self-employed businessman in real estate development and concerned taxpayer, who wrote: 

 

The proposed new turtle tunnel will be located under US 27 N  in Leon County Florida outside of Tallahassee.  Presently, there is already a large 10′ wide by 8′ high culvert under the road that the turtles apparently do not like and therefore do not use. 

A simple temporary filter fence, installed at an estimated cost of under $5000  by volunteers directed by a biologist who was conducting a turtle study, has functioned well for the past nine years.  Successful lobbying by turtle enthusiasts, coupled with the availabilty of “free” Barrack Bucks, has accomplished what local elected officials have previously been unwilling to do; fund the $3,400,000 new and improved permanent turtlebahn, guranteed to carry no turtles to nowhere faster. 

Government spokespeople, sensing public outrage and increased scrunity, have become highly creative in their defense of the expenditure.  They now cite public safety as one of the prime reasons behind the construction, even though no one can cite a single incident of a flying or waddling turtle causing an auto accident.  In lieu of actual accident data of turtle-caused auto accidents, shocking visual imagery of flying snapping turtles crashing into drivers’ windshields at 60 miles per hour was floated in off-the-cuff comments by the spokesman. 

If stimulus money is being spent on projects like this one in Florida’s capital city, where the project actually received public scutiny and still is moving forward, one can only imagine the projects that are being funded that are located in areas where public scrutiny is missing.

Thanks for the update and the laugh…..still no signage, though?

Filed under: Pork