Train To Nowhere Endangers Birds?

The California High Speed Rail Authority, which is in charge of the train to nowhere, is now proposing a new route for the train because it could potentially affect a bird sanctuary. Human sanctuaries are of little concern to the Authority, as I discussed in an earlier article about the high-handedness of the train zealots here.

The earlier brouhaha swirling around the effects on human habitation was centered largely in the San Francisco Peninsula where the trains will roar through highly-populated areas including Silicon Valley on their way from San Francisco to Los Angeles. But the Authority largely ignored the pleas of the residents because the human misery index for those near the tracks is insignificant compared to the fabulous benefits of high-speed rail. The complaints were lodged in areas currently covered by Cal Train slow speed trains which seem to have a deadly accident at least a couple times a month.

The bird misery index is of course far more important than any concern for humans. So a couple hundred miles south of San Francisco, the Authority has found to its horror that both previously-proposed alternate routes would pass through the Tulare Lake Bed where there is one of those troublesome "wetlands" in which birds dwell. "Thousands" of birds, according to the Kaweah Delta Water Conservation District and the US Fish and Wildlife Services. Put down those picks and shovels, this "disaster" must be averted at all costs (read: "human costs").

An all-new environmental review is underway, but those living in the path of the train in the Central Valley have not been invited to participate in the hearings. The Authority has the usual excuse: "We have a thorough environmental review process in which we must follow strict state and federal requirements." When all else fails, always defer to the rules and regulations of other agencies so that arcane and incomprehensible environmental factors can be used to keep those pesky humans most impacted out of the debate. After all, they just live there, but the birds have "experts."

Besides, most of the people questioning the proposed new route are just dumb farmers, and what do they know about environmentalism? For instance, Mike Monteiro has a 1,000 acre farm with 7,000 cattle which abuts the bird sanctuary. Instead of going through the sanctuary, the new route will go right through the farm, essentially cutting his farm in half. How selfish of him to worry about his own health and livelihood, not to mention the lives of all those silly cows--thousands of cows.

The Authority has already decided it favors the new route, and its bureaucratic review of its effects on "the environment" will be published in July. But never fear, the Authority also promises that it will do everything in its power to "mitigate the impacts on human habitation." Why am I now remembering a song I learned as a kid? "Oh, the railroad runs through the middle of the house, the middle of the house, the middle of the house. The railroad runs through the middle of the house, and the trains are all on time. They let us live in the front of the house, they let us live in the back. But there ain't no livin' in the middle of the house, 'cause that's the railroad track."

The Authority generously allowed the residents of Kings County and Kern County a 45 day window to lodge complaints. But they scheduled no actual hearings with the residents, and the report sans their input is already several thousand pages long. Can you say "loaded dice?" Even with what little input from the residents has been taken, the Authority has not been keeping the residents informed of the "progress" of the environmental document.

Anne Gaspar, an impacted resident of Hanford in Kings County pleaded: "We need to be informed because this is going to displace, not just our homes, but our business, how we make a living, everything. And it would be very good if they would come out to talk to us and answer the questions, and we would explain our situation here." Gaspar's husband added that it would have been nice if the Authority had notified them that a new route was in the works and reached out to the community at a much earlier date.

What the local residents don't understand is proportionality. There are thousands of birds, humans and farm animals under threat. But there is only one human species and a small number of farm animal species under the same threat. BUT, there are hundreds of bird species affected, according to the ecoweenies. I'm quite certain that logic is compelling to unthinking green zealots, but it confuses me. Thousand of birds, hundreds of species, most of which would simply ignore the trains as they barrel through on that narrow line. Or maybe they would just fly away for the couple of minutes it takes for the trains to pass.

This sounds an awful lot like the arguments against the Alaska pipeline which was going to destroy the environment and kill off all the caribou. Needless to say, it did quite the opposite. The California report seems to be bereft of any discussion of any endangered bird species living exclusively in the area. But "wetlands" and "wildlife sanctuaries" have become holy icons among the ecoweenies, and those seem to be the only issues the report has addressed so far. There could very well be a few hundred endangered California double-breasted slug-suckers nesting in the sanctuary, but thousands of them nesting a few dozen miles down the road. The report doesn't tell us.

It matters to the humans and cows that their feeding and living areas are bisected by a 200 mph train, but most birds have the good sense to get out of the way--fast. The bird sanctuary is about 1300 acres. How much of that 1300 acres would the train right-of-way take up? And for that matter, why isn't the proposed route simply moved to the border between the farmlands and the adjacent farms, thereby eliminating the necessity of cutting either in half?

Oh, wait, I just got the answer. Most of the hundreds of species must depend on the existence of the Delta smelt, so while we're busy denying water to those damned farms, we are also protecting the feeding rights of smelt-loving birds. Never mind.