Delayed By Rare Bees, Suburban Highway Project Spotlights Industry Vs. Environment Feud
By Stephen Gossett in News on Apr 20, 2017 4:15PM
A little bee and a little Illinois burg are tangled up in one of the front lines in the battle between environmentalism and industry. Just roughly a month after becoming the first species of bee to ever be listed as endangered, a certain kind of imperiled little black-and-yellow and their conservation-minded supporters are delaying a construction project—much to builders' chagrin—that could threaten their much-diminished habitat.
On Monday, federal Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman slapped a temporary stop-work order on construction of the multi-million dollar Longmeadow Parkway in Kane County that will extend at least until April 28. The reason? The rusty patched bumblebee, once thriving and populous in the Midwest region, now dwindling in the area. According to the AP, the motion was requested after opposition discovered the bumblebee in a forest preserve situated along the six-mile construction's path.
A full-stop prevention of the construction probably won't happen, according to Louise Clemency, of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Chicago office; but a study into the area's population and potential diversion in the pathway or preservation safeguard needs to be pursued, she told the AP. Meanwhile the county's transportation director said Algonquin will leak tens of thousands of dollars due to the delay.
It's all a perfect microcosm of the strange, extended struggle between either sensibility that has been waging on a gran, national scale.
According to the Washington Post, the designation of the rusty patched bumblebee onto the endangered list was years in the making, but a multi-pronged bloc of lobbyists from oil, energy and other industries nonetheless say it was a rushed call and they remain committed to a fight.
"Rusty patched bumblebees nest in underground colonies, sometimes in fields, causing worry for farmers. The coalition argued that the fast determination brushed aside hundreds of comments on their behalf and ignored “complex biological issues, ignored clear flaws in the science and data on which the service relied in listing the rusty patched bumblebee.”
But at the same time, the focus of all this conflict has seen its footprint dwarf over the last 20 years. The rusty patched bumblebee—a major pollinator of crops and wildlife—has lost almost 90 percent of its range in just two decades.
“Most of the resources and habitats [the bee] thrives in have been taken away from the Chicago region, prairies, forests,” Jana Kinsman, of Bike A bee, told CBS.
So even though both sides agree that this particular project will likely go forward in some manner, don't be surprised if our state keeps buzzing (sorry) with future similar tangles.