Steve Quayle News Alerts

May 13, 2002

Last year the discovery of a dead garter snake ground to a halt construction of a commuter rail line in San Francisco, costing taxpayers a whopping $1.07 million in delays, making the serpent the most costly snake in the world.

As NewsMax.com reported at the time, San Jose Mercury News reporter Aaron Davis said finding the snake, which is listed as a member of one of those precious endangered species without which mankind cannot survive, sparked an investigation to determine the cause of the snake's death by the sleuths at California's Department of Fish and Game.

"Nobody has ever been able to find out what happened to the snake and there was no evidence of foul play," BART spokesman Mike Healy told the Mercury News. "There was no evidence that the contractor or anyone was directly at fault."

The crushed body of that snake, an "endangered San Francisco garter snake," stopped construction of a BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) rail extension dead in it tracks. And now another dead garter snake has shut down work on the project as sleuths nose about trying to learn who or what done the thing in.

State wildlife officials ordered work halted last Thursday after a worker found a dead snake at the entrance to a work site and turned it over to a biological monitor, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

"We are working with BART to make sure they are sensitive to issues concerning the garter snake," Robert Floerke, regional manager for the state Department of Fish and Game, told the Chronicle. Officials told the Chronicle they did not anticipate a long delay.

The paper recalled that after the first snake was found dead, a 5 mph speed limit was posted in the area and workers were required to check under parked vehicles for the snakes.

The estimated $1.5 billion project to extend BART rail lines to the San Francisco airport has already laid out an astonishing $6 million merely to comply with the state's wacky environmental laws and has relocated more than 75 snakes, the Chronicle revealed.

An investigation into what killed the snake is being conducted by BART officials, biologists, and state and federal wildlife officials. We are not making this up.

Investigators are seeking to learn if the snake's death was due to natural causes or construction work, and to determine if BART and its contractors are doing everything in their power to protect the snakes.

Even before construction began, the Chronicle recalls that "snake trappers caught as many as possible. Then special fences were erected to keep others from slithering into harm's way. And special biological monitors were hired to keep watch over the snake's territory."

After finding the first dead snake, workers were put through special snake training that taught them how to recognize the snake, Molly MacArthur, a spokeswoman for the extension project, told the Chronicle.

But representatives of BART and the state Department of Fish and Game said they didn't expect the work stoppage to last long this time.

That's providing, of course, that wildlife officials don't order an extended investigation to determine if Osama bin Laden had a hand in the dastardly deed, or declare a prolonged period of mourning for the late snake.

http://www.newsmax.com/showinsidecover.shtml?a=2002/5/13/125707