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Tiny bird gets DOT to sing new tune
By JAMES THORNER
© St. Petersburg Times, published January 24, 2001
The state Department of Transportation plans to spend $100,000 on a little blue bird in the hopes of defeating a lawsuit challenging the soon-to-open Suncoast Parkway.
The Sierra Club insists the DOT destroyed Florida scrub jay habitat when it sliced the 42-mile parkway across Pasco and Hernando counties. A hearing on the matter is scheduled for Feb. 5 in federal court in Jacksonville.
But the DOT announced last week, having cleared the measure with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, that it would spend $100,000 to create scrub jay terrain on the 7,000-acre Serenova preserve in Pasco. The DOT will give the money to the Southwest Florida Water Management District, which will burn and clear brush to accommodate the birds, protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.
DOT attorney Wayne Flowers said he expects the scrub jay preserve will satisfy the judge.
Sierra Club attorney Lesley Blackner complained that the DOT's plan can never compensate for the environmental destruction of the parkway, scheduled to open Feb. 4.
Under the slogan "Save It! Don't Pave It!" the Sierra Club sued the DOT in 1999 to stop the $500-million project. A judge rejected the case on the grounds that the environmentalists sued too late, nearly a year after construction of the road had begun.
The Sierra Club narrowed the lawsuit to focus on the highway's supposed harm to the scrub jay and wood stork. It's that case the judge will hear in February.
A study found that although no jays were displaced by the road, the animals might get hit by cars as they flew near the road. The DOT's solution is the $100,000 scrub jay preserve.
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