We are giong to help build a water treatment plant that has been plagued by delays, it has 2 large ponds and a tank area. The excess material goes 2000 ft. to a stockpile. The environmental impact report states we must put a special turtle proof fence around the entire perimeter, haul roads , stockpile and all in case a turtle from a river that is 1/4 mile away ventures out to the site and gets run over by a scraper:Banghead It's truly sad that people of such mentality are in the position to mandate such ridiculous requirements. I'll post some pics as the job progresses, we're still waiting on a grading permit.
When I was working for a Railroad contractor, we had a rail supervisor inform us that somewhere out your direction there was something like this going on. According to him, anytime there was track work going on they had to have a representative from some save the turtle foundation with them at all times. If the turtle was spotted all work came to a halt til the turtle was out of harms way. You in no way could move the stupid thing all that could be done is a small ramp made to hopefully speed up the process!!!!!!!!! ointhead
thats so stupid! its a turtle
Two incidents that I know of have happened in my area that I know of. Most recently, the local high school planned an expansion project. Some kind of very rare turtle was spotted in the area that was planned for construction. The only way they could continue was to construct a new wetland area to relocate the turtles at an expense of what I hear to be in excess of $1,000,000 all at taxpayer expense. It also delayed the opening of the new addition by several months. In another case, a local gravel bank had a breed of rattlesnake passing through the area they wanted to mine. The owner of the property took it upon himself to construct a snake proof fence around this area to keep the snakes out out of his own concern for their safety. The environmentalists somehow learned of this and called the State, they required him to remove the fence and prohibited him from using that area for soil mining. There's no middle ground with these extremists, they feel anything that humans do is an encroachment on nature. Their idea of an ideal world is one without humans, my opinion is that they should take their mantra to heart and remove themselves from this world.
Prime examples that contribute to our country's weakening health
I'm on board with you guy's ...I dont see the whole picture either ..I've often had visions of these guys helping out an animal carry on its own undisturbed way ..only to get flattened by a Mack truck at crusing speed on the highway an hour later... And you know how it is the crew gets a rythem going ,things are going as planned...and then stop.. But the bright side to all this is ,this is all the uppermanagments call in lue of law and regulations.. we are all still on the clock , and getting paid ..thats as close as a guy this day is gonna get to money for nothing ... one must find the good in every situation ..
I don't see it getting any better in the next four years.With Obama and the Democrats running everything.The tree huggers and the rest of the left wing loons will destroy all of us working people.I guess we need to quit work and get us one of those checks Obama going to give everyone.
wait, is obama gonna help turtleproof jobsites? turtle encroachment happens very fast, guys. lets be careful out there.
Working in all the wetlands, swamps and ponds that I do a year, I"ve run into the turtle situation before. Most the time it is no problem and rarely do you even see a turtle, when I do I'll just scoop it up with the bucket and sit it to the side. I don't sit there and run over them on purpose, but eventually you will sqwash one here nad there. I've had a woman come out and yell at me for disturbing turtles in a pond before. She could have cared less about the 200 dead fish floating in the water, but Holy hell them turtles must have been gold plated or something I told her that I'm getting out of the machine to relocate them, if they were unhappy they will move themselves. that was not the answer she was looking for aparently. So long story short she was knee deep in mud picking up and relocating turtles. Funny thing was she was stupid enough to put them all back up stream of where I was working... of course they all came right back down the creek.:cool2
Worked on a school just North of Cincinnati Oh We drained a pond that was full of snapping turtles. Some got transfered to a neighbors pond. Others got buried in the mud. Others were harmed in the making of dinner for a few nights in a row. The locals didnt seem to have a problem with it.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090113/ap_on_re_au_an/as_australia_rabbit_infestation Stories like this show how little people actually understand about the effects of our actions. We like to think of nature in simple terms like math where things are cut and dried. Unintended consequences seem to win every time.
You said it, man. You gotta stay alert!!!!
^^^^^^^that is funny stuff, right there.^^^^^^^
Dont kill me im not a tree hugger im not an animal lover...but i am a reptile nut weather it be snakes turtles or lizards...heres the reason for the turtle fence...in spring, aquatic turtles and land turtles will find loose material to lay eggs in...a large snapping turtle will travel many hundreds of yards from the water to find ideal material. a newly banked loam pile or gravel pile is ideal for what they are looking for. some turtles can lay up to 100 eggs.the reason in the high number is that only a handfull will survive to adult hood, if a local pond or river only has a small amount of breeding turtles....and those turtles laid the eggs on the site. theres a good chance that none of the eggs would survive. once they are disturbed theres little to no chance in survival.and if most of the nest are disturbed during construction then its a good chance that that years entire new population would be lost. its not a matter of 1 or 2 adult turtles getting run over that the fence is needed ...its to keep the turtle from laying eggs on the site . like i said im not an animal lover and i honestly wouldnt bother with the fence and i probly wouldnt go out of my way to protect the animals but thats the reason.....dont kill me please as i enjoy coming on here. im only stating the reason behind the fence and im in no way in cahoots with the turtles....spotted owls...tree huggers or any of those filthy dirty hemp sportin, sandal wearing ,tye dye greenpeace /earth first jerks that slow production. brian
Political discussions are not encouraged on this forum. This forum is about Heavy Equipment and associated issues. This topic is one that directly effects our industry but refrain from politics or naming specific politicians.
100???? Whoa
I respect that Brian but be honest with yourself, if the river is 75 miles long and the unlikely event happens that a turtle should come on the job and lay eggs as you say, what percentage of total eggs would that be? Do you think such an unmeasureably small percentage failure would contribute to the demise of the turtle population? I do not. The fence is mandatory, no fence no permit.
ill be honest and say id be pissed too if it was required. it is silly to think the entire site has to be fenced off. not every turtle from the river is going to climb up there. just stating the fences reason is to stop egg laying not so much to stop them from getting run over....but then again that would stop the egg laying too. lol
sorry about the political response. brian, that was well put and funny. i also love everybody and everything
Never heard of the turtle issue, and it wasn't until I had read some of the replies that I started to believe it's for real. It does boggle the mind that anybody would try to save a turtle. In my opinion, they are varmints that are only good for target practice. While we're talking wacky rules and some of the things our government does, I have a few from my days back in California. A friend had some land and wanted to widen the roads so a fire truck could get to his place in the case of an emergency. The county sent one of their people over and we was told that he had to prove to them that a certain species of Salamander didn't exist on or near the road. He was able to document that they do not live anywhere in that area, and that the terrain was all wrong for them in that area, but they wouldn't accept that. Books can be wrong. He ended up contacting the fire department and inviting the fire chief out to his place and showing him were the road needed clearing for his fire trucks. Within a few days, the county sent some people out there to clear the road. There was another one where a dead snake was found in one of the maintenance yards for the Bay Area Rapid Transit, also called BART. Since nobody knew the type of snake off hand, it was decided to close down BART until they cold figure it out. I forget how long it was down, but the end result was that is was a common racer snake. And don't forget the spotted owl joke. They wanted to stop all logging in the Pacific Northwest to save the spotted owl. Their numbers were down and the environmentalists decided that it was because there was only a limited amount of old growth forest remaining. Then after awhile, it was learned that the reason the spotted owl's numbers was down in the old growth forest is the owl had gone to the newly cut forest where it could hunt easier. Less trees is something that the spotted owl prefers. Eddie
Brian, You know you have a box in your 315 that you keep all your little cridders you find at work. Bring all your snakes home and scare the crap out of the kids and wife! lol by the way hows those models comming along? send me a PM.
right on chris...its called species relocation and if it keeps the mice out of my garage and the kids next door out of my yard then it works for me ! i single handedly reintroduced one of the only snakes in the lower 48 to go out of its way to strike a human .... the eastern black racer... to the mean streets of woonsocket! my neihbors love me now! models are getting there and ill send over a p.m.
Oh man that's punishable up to 3 years for relocating endangered species without proper documentation... You took them from a jobsite where they might die to a place where they will die... how can you sleep at night:beatsme
Now they found 2 Elderberry bushes across this canal, we are to stay 100 ft.away from them to keep from running over the Elderberry beetle that resides within the bush. What a crock. The job site is to the left of the canal.The turtle fence isn't up yet, pics to follow
the old man had to do an environmental survey to put up a shed. uncle sam checked for rare frogs. basically a hidden taxation on what your building. also kept another inspector on the payroll effectively making uncle sam feel good about being involved and being large/in charge... indian remains are about as sacred as endangered animals. the locals who didnt want a 4 lane on their property supposedly bought a bunch of arrow heads and "sewed" some properties hoping to get the road relocated. there for awhile indians were laying claim too most of downstate illinois. the casino could have been HUGE! if only they would have "paid to play" w/ blago it probably would have passed..... all jokes aside some of the animals that have come back, say like the bald eagle in my front yard are pretty amazing. it comes down to can we all exist together and what value you put on human livelihood.
i just dont understand how a normal silt fence is not considered enough to stop a turtle
Turtle Training While I was digging at Edwards AFB in CA, we had to go to Turtle School before we could start digging. The entire crew had to go and you needed a sticker on your hard hat so the "turtle cops" could see that you had the training. If you didn't have the sticker you could be kicked off the jobsite.:ban The funniest thing was that, at the training someone asked the instructor if there were allot of turtles on base and they stated that they had never seen one in the wild!!:Banghead
Ah yes! welcome to Cali, and dont forget the fairy shrimp! That thrive in the vernal pools!
I had one of those stickers when I was working for Kiewit, down in the Mojave a few years ago. I stuck it on the 988 I was running. Same deal, nobody had ever seen one. Just a way for the Govt. to try and controll what happens.
When I was working down in the Mojave, we had to build and maintian over 8000 feet of 'turtle fence'. What a pain. That was just around our pit where we were crushing rock. and making black stuff. Out on I-15, where the paving was going on, from Barstow to damn near Baker, the entire freeway had to have turtle fence. What a crock! Seems to me a turtle could walk in front of a Vegas bound car just as fast as it could a paver bound belly dump! But you know, we were ther to ruin there enviroment. Man I hate hippies! Jason
And don't forget the burrowing owls! Should have seen the environmentalist with the owls "that were to stupid to put their nest in tree's"! They had every hole GPS'ed and if you were working anywhere near them they would flag each one like a Christmas tree and stand there to make sure you didn't put any dirt on the hole....don't even ask to tear up any sage brush!:OMG
It would be way to logical to assume that! AMEN! I think that anyone who votes for this bull should have to live in a cabin in the woods with no power, no cars, no gas, no wood to burn, nothing plastic. Just water, maybe some vegies and plenty of trees to hug!
All it boils down to is this my friends; enviromentalist HATE human beings and they HATE mankind! For some reason they cant seem to see past the end of their own noses, and see what makes the world go around. They dont want to see progression, they dont want prosperitery. They think that everyone should live in a sod dug-out with no power and eat dirt! Every day, every hour, something gives way to make way for the next generation. Animal or human. Things get wiped out! Whether its a tree, a wetland or a stupid fly! People have got to see the need for progression. Without it, where would mankind be? I am a enviromentalist. As I am sure some of you folks are. But the differnce between us and them is we work for a living. And we want to see a place for our kids to grow up. I love my house. I love the fact that I cut down trees to clear a place to build my house, which I sold to a mill which employed people. Im sure I bought my own timber to build my house! I love the fact that I can go to work everyday and operate a piece of machiney that was built with minerals mined out of our country, mabey the fuel didnt come from here, but thats progress! If these people that are against everything, would have a look around, they would MABEY realize, just waht it takes to make the world go round. I could go on for hours about this, but its to much to type. Jason
I have a few "cabins" that I'll rent out to California treehuggers. Just have them PM me with the applications and deposits.
I dont think they would like them Swampdog. They are built with wood!!
From my experience, the most unreasonable environmentalists are those that live in the bigger cities. They have already ruined their own environment, modifying every square inch of nature with buildings, pavement, and concrete. Then they have the audacity to come out to the countryside and tell the country folk, who love and look after their environment, that they should not modify a thing.
Swampdog You said it. There is also a lot of "I got mine, now we have to preserve the rest" attitude. This is from the people who recently moved from the city to the rural area, then do not want any development, or use, or travel, or recreation.............. I get to grade a road next week, and due to the recent rain, a smallish mudpuddle in the ROW is now off limitd due to the POSSIBILITY that there may be fairy shrimp there. zBefore it was a construction site, cars and trucks drove through it all the time, but now that there is a contractor trying to make a buck, it suddenly becomes HABITAT.
:roll You must be kidding? That's one of the more unreasonable things I have heard. Gotta love CA! Those hippies are gonna smoke pot and save the whole world!!!!:lmao:slomo
You think it´s a joke, just go sit in on a wetlands comission hearing in the Redding. I think they´ve got no less than 5 posters on the wall that explain ''vernal ponds''. It´s a thinly veiled attempt to stretch the control of the zoning board (head of zoning is married to wetlands committee chairman). By all means, mosquito breeding grounds must be preserved. We must not lose any more strains of west nile virus. Maybe the solution is to throw dead crow in the puddle before wetlands comes out to look at the sited.
What if the endangered turtle is eating the fairy shrimp?:beatsme Now that is a conundrum. ointhead
If I was kidding, then it would be funny. By the time they save the world, it will not be fit for man to live in, only plants and animals.
I wonder how many fairy shrimp I've ripped, dozed or scraped before they became an issue. The world is still turning. The shrimp holes are monitored by satelite photo's I'm told. No way to hide. :cool2
What was fenced off as one of the most identifiable vernalpools, on a job site I was on, was clearly nothing more than a depression caused from a scraper dragging its can from the season before. Even though Ray Charles could have seen it, the biologest wouldnt even consider it.
This reminds me of when I was working at Trojan Nuclear power plant in Oregon. We were wrecking the reactor dome, after another company wrecked everything else. We got to where a pipe went into the reactor vessel. All of a sudden the job came to a halt. We found an owl with a few youngins in that hole in the concrete. PG&E showed up with an owl box, strapped it to a chain link fence, put the youngins in it. They made sure to take lots of pictures. Apparently mother owl would find them as long as they were in line of site of the old home. This was halfway up the reactor dome, about 100ft. Since we wrecked it from the bottom i couldnt imagine all that noise from a hammer all day long. I bet those birds dont hear much of any thing.
that's when you just scoop them up and give them a good "toss" to the side. who said turtles can't fly Hey atleast I didn't run over it... well most of them made it out ointhead
This is manmade wetland in CA. Here we have what is called off site-mitigation. This wetland was created so at the other end of my road a water treatment plant could be built. A pipeline will be run down the road and this wetland was created out of good pastureland to make the Depts. Fish & Game Happy with the project. Cal. Dept of Fish & Game carry a side arm and will not think twice about pulling it if they think you are in violation. We do have West Nile Virus here transmitted by mosquitoes. So this is now a breeding place for mosquitoes and West Nile Virus. Now as for humans in Cal. we live by the new to be built treatment plant, and the pipeline to be built will go down the road and we will not be allowed to get water from the line. This is Cal. if it is not logical they well believe it, if it is stupid they will embrace it. God created the land for man to use. It says subdue the land. Most environmentalists think land first, man second. I know there is exceptions but most of the time it’s crazy.