Re: How not to conduct an iris salvage

majorcanis@aol.com wrote:

>     I am appalled by your story. Shame your DOT by telling them that when
> the
> NC DOT was excavating for the interstate connector to continue I-26 from
> Asheville, NC to the TN boundary, over extremely difficult and isolated
> terrain, they made a public call with stated hours for people to come
> salvage
> wildflowers.
>
> James Harrison
> Asheville, NC

 .... I knew I was making a confusing muddle of this story. I was trying to
do the "short version" and it reads like a hopeless mess.
I MUST say DOT wasn't a complete baddie ...... they do actually open right
of ways to the public to harvest the plants, which happened last summer.
The time period closed last fall, without any private or public group
taking particular action on any particular part of the flora. I had gone
out personally last summer and dug, but only in an individual capacity.
I didn't clarify this well, reading back on my letter, but I think the real
problem lay in the poor timing. The official biological study didn't
identify any unique flora, and at that point it was thrown open to public
input for roughly six months. For whatever reasons, no action was taken
until past the allowed period, and at that point it required more
compelling reasons to hold up construction. I don't know if you read my
first letter, but it is an average iris patch that would have been very
nice to transplant, but at this late a date couldn't be done without
invoking special status.
I would be pleased to see it transplanted to the other side of the road,
but not under the banner of an endangered plant rescue. I think this was
mostly a case of not getting one's act together in time on the part of the
botanical group, which is too bad. Because at this point, DOT is pretty
much thinking with their pocketbook, though I can't say I blame them.
If worse come to worst, I'm going to take the ones I dug last year, and
transplant them to the new area.... but only in a private capacity. It
would please me to drive by and see those.
kathy haggstrom
southcentral AK usa


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]


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