Free Republic

AUSTIN, Texas— The Center for Biological Diversity and Save Our Springs Alliance today filed a notice of intent to sue the Texas Department of Transportation and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over an Austin highway construction project’s threats to the federally endangered Austin blind and Barton Springs salamanders. The conservation groups recently learned that the MoPac Intersections Project has exposed at least 21 underground caves, sink holes and other karst features that provide habitat for the endangered salamanders. There is a high risk that construction will pollute the two species’ habitat by introducing silt and pollutants to the subsurface. The...

AUSTIN, Texas— In response to a notice of intent to sue filed by the Center for Biological Diversity and Save Our Springs Alliance in May, the Texas Department of Transportation changed course on a major highway project in Austin, withdrawing its finding that the highway would have no impact on three federally protected species (two salamanders and a bird). The state’s transportation agency said in a letter that it has initiated consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on the three species.The construction of the MoPac Intersections Project across the environmentally sensitive Barton Springs Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone, in...