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Officials should keep close eye on Wal-Mart

By A TIMES EDITORIAL
Published March 29, 2007

It is a good thing that local activists in Tarpon Springs are closely following plans for a Wal-Mart Supercenter there. Last week, they managed to stop the improper removal of gopher tortoises, a protected species, from the proposed store site on U.S. 19 at the Anclote River.

It is not clear why no one in a government oversight capacity caught the illegal activity. Fortunately, after activists sounded the alarm, state wildlife officials made it to the site in time to intercept eight tortoises that had been dug from their burrows and prepared for a trip somewhere else.

Wal-Mart had obtained permits to move up to 10 gopher tortoises from the property. However, the state demands that developers hold off on removing the animals until all other permits to build have been obtained. That is an added layer of protection that prevents wildlife from being disturbed until absolutely necessary. Wal-Mart does not yet have all of its permits to build.

Gary Morse, spokesman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, said premature removal of the tortoises is not a typical transgression. While developers sometimes are caught killing or removing tortoises without any permit, it is not common for a developer who has the proper permit to simply get in too much of a hurry and move the animals prematurely.

Wal-Mart ought to know the rules, because its treatment of gopher tortoises has made the news more than once.

For example, in 2005 Wal-Mart got a national drubbing after deciding to entomb, rather than relocate, five gopher tortoises under the foundation of a new store in Lake Park. Wal-Mart actually had a permit for the "incidental taking" - state code for burying the creatures alive in their burrows - but the public backlash to the Lake Park killing was so strong that the state and Wal-Mart promised to be more sensitive in the future.

Sure, the Tarpon Springs incident could have been worse. Those eight tortoises could have been buried alive. At least Wal-Mart planned to relocate them this time. The wildlife officer who arrived at the scene March 23 found the eight tortoises in a truck bound for a Volusia County relocation site.

But Wal-Mart still didn't follow the rules, jumping the gun to get the animals off the site before the store is a certainty. While the store originally was approved by the Tarpon Springs City Commission in January 2005, Wal-Mart's plans have been challenged in court by local opponents and slowed by regulatory issues.

Until the supercenter is a done deal, the wildlife should remain in their home, undisturbed and allowed free rein.

This is not the first time that local activists have caught something in Wal-Mart's actions that regulators should have seen. State, regional and local officials need to keep a closer eye on the Tarpon Springs site and its developer.

[Last modified March 28, 2007, 23:27:02]