$3.4 million turtle ''eco-passage'' designed to protect animals and people

Tallahassee, Florida -- Laugh if you will, but state transportation officials and wildlife researchers say a $3.4 million pair of tunnels under a busy North Florida highway is a serious safety project -- for people, too.

A hearty national guffaw began when Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., released a list of 100 items he called wasteful in President Obama's federal stimulus package. The Lake Jackson "eco-passage," a few miles north of Florida's capitol, caught national media attention.

But Kevin Thibault, assistant secretary for engineering and operations in the state Department of Transportation, said the "turtle tunnel" ridicule missed a couple of salient points. First, the money won't detract from interstate highways or airports, but will come from a small "enhancement" pot that is set aside for just such work.

And second, the twin tunnels under a four-lane stretch of U.S. 27 north of Tallahassee will be big enough for a deer to scamper through -- thus making the road a lot safer for motorists who don't want to hit one at 50 or 60 miles an hour. An alligator or turtle can be a highly hazardous speed bump in the dark, said DOT spokesman Dick Kane.

"The federal stimulus package that was passed by Congress funded a lot of transportation and safety projects," said Thibault.

He said Florida's $1.35 billion DOT share includes about $900 million for major transportation projects, $400 million for local roads and bridges and $40 million for "enhancement" work like the Lake Jackson tunnels.

Allocating the money was "a shared decision-making process" with city and county officials, Thibault said, and the eco-passage was this area's top "enhancement" priority.

Jack Kostrzewa, planning manager for the Capital Regional Transportaiton Planning Agency, and Matt Aresco, director of the Nokuse Plantation wildlife preserve in Walton County, said U.S. 27 would never be built as it is if today's environmental standards were in place 50 years ago. Aresco said about 62 species need to cross the road in the forests around Lake Jackson.

"It's a safety issue," said Kostrezewa. "We're trying to separate wildlife from the road."

That might require a spatula, for too many turtles. The North Florida Ecopassage Web site counted 2,070 turtle fatalities per year in the area, more than 20 times the second-highest location, Paynes Prarie near Gainesville.

Thibault said "there are a lot of these types of crossings" around the state, for black bears, the Florida Panther and other critters trying to coexist with the intrusion of traffic, housing and business into once-wilderness lands across the state.

"There's a lot of misinformation about it. It's not a turtle crossing, it's a wildlife passage," said Kostrezewa. "It's a safety issue in an environmentally sensitive area."

He said there are now "silt fences" of about 18 inches to two feet high bordering Highway 27. But when vegetation overgrows them, it's easy for a turtle, gator or other small animal to slip through.

Aresco said the design calls for an existing culvert to be retrofitted and cleaned out, for small animal passage. He said two box culverts will be dug about 500 feet apart, one about eight-by-seven feet, the other about five-by-10 feet, along with "a specialized wall" of fencing for about a mile north and south of the tunnels, to make the animals move toward them.

"The road was built directly across the lake bottom, which would never happen today," said Aresco. "There are about 25,000 vehicles a day on it and it's an impassible barrier for wildlife."

Local officials reacted quickly. County Commissioner Cliff Thaell scheduled an appearance on CNN to talk turtles, Commissioner John Dailey set up a visit to the lake side and Commissioner Bob Rackleff fired off a letter to the Wall Street Journal decrying Coburn's "ignorant cheap shot" at the project.

"Instead of waste, the wildlife crossing illustrates how decades-ago blunders require expensive repairs," wrote Rackleff. "Road engineers in the 1930s built U.S. Highway 27 through one of the finest bass fishing lakes in the southeastern United States -- not around, but through. Then in the 1960s, they widened it into a four-lane divided highway -- further compounding the damage, which included wholesale slaughter of small animals, including turtles, trying to cross."