[CT Birds] Bad news for Griswold Airport (COMINS, Patrick)

[Robert J. Bitondi]

Thanks to Pat for bringing up the Griswold Airport issue again.  Thanks also for including the link to the SGOD site where there is information on how to help. (BTW, they need a better acronym.)  I agree with those who suggest that what is needed is for the State legislature to enact—AND ENFORCE—strong preservation laws that incorporate language that specifically requires wildlife protection.   The patch quilt approach we have now is altogether useless in many cases, placing the burden of proof not on the developers but on conservationists who must madly cast about to find an officially designated endangered species on the targeted property in order to plead for protection.   The Madison situation is glaring proof that as a society we have mostly failed to address the issue of protecting critically important wildlife habitats, even when the endangered area is also one of the most important recreation destinations in the state.

I emphasize the State approach because, as others here have indicated, on the town level there is far too much conflict of interest for conservation to be practiced consistently and honestly.  In my own town we have a seemingly enlightened board of selectmen who energetically pursue the purchase of land outright, or its development rights, in order to prevent subdivisions; they ask tax payers for the budget money to do this and they’ve been getting it, insisting that it’s in our fiscal self-interest to do so—which it is.  But at the same time that they ask us to vote for such purchases (often in conjunction with the State and local land trusts), these same politicians are preparing to develop their own properties, properties that increase in value due to the removal of potentially competing developments with the assistance of town funds.  My politician neighbor boasts candidly to me about his plans to turn the forested street on which I live (where I’ve logged 105 bird
 species so far) into a neighborhood of McMansions, then simultaneously campaigns for the protection of wildlife corridors in other parts of town.  His reasoning?  The forest on my street is “just trees.”  I won’t make the obvious forest-for-the-trees quip, but you get the picture.  What this comes down to is that when things are decided on the local level there is too much temptation for the local players, enlightened as they may be when speaking of conservation strategies and future infrastructure expenses, to cash in while the getting is good.  I think it has to be done on the State level to have any hope of being effective.

Bob Bitondi
Pomfret Center