A Bridge Too High

The issue over the Buffalo Peace Bridge Expansion Project provides an excellent example of how science can be distorted by politicians to fit an agenda and sway public opinion. Apparently, no political party is immune from employing this sort of tactic.

After a thorough review by the Federal Highway Administration, it was determined that the planned height of a new two-tower cable stay bridge would have an unacceptable impact on migratory birds, including the locally threatened Common Tern. Other groups expressing concern over the design included NY Department of Environmental Conservation, US Fish & Wildlife Service, US Environmental Protection Agency, Environment Canada, New York Audubon and the Baird Foundation.

And who thinks they know better than all these smart people? Our elected public officials! Despite an April 23rd announcement by Buffalo and Fort Erie Public Bridge Authority to drop the 567 foot high two-tower cable stay design in favor of a lower profile bridge, politicians want to salvage the original signature design (above photograph). Appreciate the smoothness and simplicity in which bird impact concerns are summarily dismissed. Citing a 2002 scientific review indicating bird crashes into tall structures, including bridges, accounted for less than .02% of all bird deaths, Rep. Brian Higgens (D)-Buffalo concluded:

"This data calls into question the whole thesis that birds are crashing into any structures in any great numbers — birds apparently have the good sense to fly around obstructions, just as pedestrians tend not to walk into light poles on sidewalks."

How does the science weigh in? U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that bird collisions with tall, lighted communications towers, and their guy wires result in 4 to 10 million bird deaths a year. If you examine statistics and estimates on all of the ways birds are being killed via human causes, the number potentially crosses over a billion individuals annually. When expressed as a percentage, the number of deaths by collision structures may seem comparatively small, but this is a far cry from what Higgens suggests with his empty-headed rhetoric. Also note that collisions with windows (on structures) accounts for the highest cause of bird mortality apart from habitat loss and fragmentation - over 100 million birds annually. Higgens is wrong.

Next, behold the brilliant ornithological mind of Senator Charles Schumer:

"The common tern is not much different than a sea gull and it's hardly an endangered species."

The senator from New York entirely misses the point that the common tern, though locally threatened and declining, isn't the only migratory bird species adversely affected by the structure in its original planned form. I can only surmise that his ignorant attempt to lump the common tern with sea gulls [sic] is to have us associate large gull populations with mythical proportionate and sustainable common tern numbers, or perhaps that they won't even be missed if ultimately extirpated.

It's such an elegant bridge design, though. Who really cares about a few birds, anyway? A few birds here, a few birds there, pretty soon, everywhere, there will be fewer birds.

Link: Peace Bridge Expansion Project

Link: Fatal Light Awareness Program

Link: New York EC - Common Tern Status

Link: Higgins asks reconsideration of Bridge plan

Link: New Bridge Not Dead in Water?

Image courtesy of Buffalo and Fort Erie PBA.