Best Way to Protect the Snakes is to NOT Build DRIC

From Daily Commercial News & Construction Data (Markham, ON) published April 25, 2011

Windsor, Ontario parkway fence serves as endangered species protection

RON STANG

correspondent

WINDSOR

Thirteen kilometres of black geotextile fencing has been almost fully installed along the corridor of the Windsor-Essex Parkway, the planned extension of Hwy 401 linking to a new bridge between Windsor and Detroit.

The entire project is known as the Detroit River International Crossing (DRIC).

The fence is to keep two species of snakes out of the construction zone for the $1.6 billion road. These are the Eastern Fox Snake and the Butler’s Garter Snake.

The snakes were identified as protected species under the Endangered Species Act.

The permit issued required that the animals, as well as six plant species, be protected during the construction of the 11-kilometre, six-lane sunken freeway, which will also have service roads, extensive tunnelling, and will be topped by 240 acres of green space. It’s by far Ontario’s most expensive highway project per kilometre.

Demolition along the corridor is moving apace. The construction consortium, the Windsor Essex Mobility Group (WEMG), has said major work should begin by July or August. Some initial bridgework has been completed at the start of the Parkway near where Hwy. 401 currently ends.

The fencing is quite noticeable along Hwy 3 and Huron Church Road south of the city-owned E. C. Row Expressway, with numerous sections built in a strategic but seeming random pattern, often zigzagging around properties bordering the corridor.

The solid fence is six feet in height and connected by two-by-four wood frames. Geotextile, permeable and commonly made of polypropylene, is used for silt fences or to prevent erosion.

In this case, it is embedded six inches below ground in a trench, which prevents the Eastern Fox Snake — which measures between 80 and 140 cm — from going underneath it.

Geotextile’s smooth surface also prevents snakes from climbing over the top since they “don’t have anything they can latch on to,” said Joel Foster, who heads MTO’s environmental section for the Windsor Border Initiatives Implementation Group.

The other protected snake species is the Butler’s Garter Snake which measures 30 to 50 cm.

But Foster said this snake is much smaller and doesn’t have the mobility of the Eastern Fox Snake.

So the fence “isn’t designed for that species in particular because they don’t climb and they don’t have the same ability as the Fox Snake and they don’t move around as much either.”

Foster said this is the most extensive use of such fencing for a highway project in Ontario, noting the Endangered Species Act is also relatively new legislation.

Foster said environmentalists were consulted about endangered species as part of parkway planning and there will be follow-up public consultation.

He did not provide a cost for the fence, saying the expense is “rolled into” the overall consortium contract.

Phil Roberts, president of the local Essex County Field Naturalists Club, said WEMG has “some good local talent” specializing in snakes working with it. He also said construction staff have “all gone through some fairly stringent training” to identify snakes and other species.

Roberts did not know the fence’s cost but suggested if it was $100,000 the price is worth it.

Nevertheless, he said, “We know there are going to be negative impacts. This Parkway will pave over endangered species, essentially.”