BOG TURTLES don't vote. Bog turtles don't contribute to political candidates or to special-interest Political Action Committees. In fact, they're not interested in politics at all.
So they don't get much respect from the Carroll County commissioners, who've sounded off on the federally protected small turtles.
Consider proposed plans for the 6-mile Hampstead bypass project, which would divert through traffic from Route 30 around the town. Surprisingly untouched by the hand of Governor Smart Growth, the 35-year-old Hampstead bypass project is bogged down (for the second or third time this decade) by bog turtles, a threatened species.
Carroll's commissioners have railed against this impertinence of nonvoting reptiles against the grandeur of humankind.
Gouge's soup?
"They could sell them or make their soup," huffed Commissioner Julia Walsh Gouge, looking for a direct solution to the troublesome turtles. Never mind that it would be a federal (and state) crime, punishable by serious jail time and a $50,000 fine.
Commissioner Donald I. Dell, in his state of the county speech, also attacked the bog turtle and its defenders.
"We are allowing a small, self-appointed special interest group to impose its concerns on the majority," he declared of the bog turtle obstacles. Human convenience and safety seem to count for less than these turtles.
Actually, Mr. Dell delivered his address by videotape, as he was in New Mexico attending the American Farm Bureau Federation convention, where that special-interest pleader for government handouts and insurance-writing advantages was calling for death to the gray wolves of Yellowstone National Park.
The tiny, seldom-seen bog turtles are living in wetlands where they have lived for centuries. Their habitat lies within the path considered for the Hampstead bypass. The bypass path was changed a few years ago to avoid the turtles. But more were found.
Bog turtles became an official threatened species in 1997, under the Endangered Species Act. (Maryland listed them as endangered in 1972.)
So the Hampstead bypass, even if the $35 million cost was instantly available, could not be built as planned. The turtle must be considered; it's the law.
Existence of the protected turtles in the area was well known. News stories and editorials examined the issue (and wondered why legal protections of wetlands in the bypass route were skirted).
Elevated priority
