A Douglas administration decision to remove the Missisquoi Bay causeway over Lake Champlain has sparked a debate over how that will affect habitat for the spiny soft shell turtle.
SWANTON, Vt. — A Douglas administration decision to remove the Missisquoi Bay causeway over Lake Champlain has sparked a debate over how that will affect habitat for the spiny soft shell turtle.
The Fish and Wildlife Department is challenging scientists' conclusion that the causeway should be left in place to protect the turtle, which is on Vermont's threatened species list.
Some outside scientists are asking whether politics -- not science -- is driving the state's assessment of the Eastern spiny soft-shell turtle's needs.
"I certainly think that is what is happening," said C. William Kilpatrick, a University of Vermont biology professor and a member of the state advisory committee on endangered reptiles and amphibians. "It's a real problem."
Fish and Wildlife Commissioner Wayne Laroche, who has offered new theories challenging the importance of the causeway to the turtles' survival, said he insisted on scientific rigor.
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"I always approach things with a can-do attitude, but I can't violate my basis in science. Lies won't cut it in science," the former wildlife researcher said.
Scientists disagree with Laroche's theory that removing the causeway is important to eliminating a barrier to the turtles' movements and to allowing the lake's natural currents to create new nesting beaches.
"I wish he had started a dialogue with scientists before going public with his theories," said James Andrews, a Middlebury College biologist and chairman of the reptile-and-amphibian committee. "There is some evidence, under the current administration, that it is 'policy first, science second.'"
The 3,500-foot causeway carries Vermont 78 across a neck of Lake Champlain between Swanton and Alburg at the mouth of Missisquoi Bay. The turtles live in Missisquoi Bay and its tributary rivers, but gather in large numbers on the rocky causeway, foraging for food, basking in the sun and burrowing at its base in winter.
But, with a new bridge due to open in 2006 or 2007, many residents want the causeway removed. They claim that would reduce phosphorus pollution that turns the bay soupy green in the summer.
In August, the Douglas administration announced it would begin steps to remove the Missisquoi Bay causeway and another just to the south at Carry Bay.
Laroche's conclusion reverses the department's previous findings and is key to the Douglas administration's plans.
An endangered-species permit already in place for the new bridge, forbidding the state from removing more than 330 feet of the old causeway because of the turtle habitat, would have to be amended or replaced.
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Information from: The Burlington Free Press, http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com
Source: Associated Press
