Economics of Eco-Passages

In front of Council next week, the Long Point Causeway Phase II Wildlife Culvert Project will be seeking approval for 3 additional Eco-passages on Long Point.  The County is acting as a liaison for the design and construction and has not allocated any funds to this project.

Even with such a minimal role in this project, County Staff still managed to draw the ire of Nick Wilson, President, Long Point Biosphere Reserve Foundation.  Hopefully Councilors read enough of the report to find this paragraph :

"Council should be aware that we will not be providing any funding for the proposed
guardrails and anti-fishing fencing at the existing aquatic culvert that were included
in the low bid, These items were inserted in the tender by County staff without our
consent even though we were paying for the preparation of the tender documents
by the consulting engineers. The LPWBRF does not agree that these costly items
are needed to prevent people from fishing at the culvert and does not have any
funding available for such work under its current funding agreements with the
federal and provincial governments."

After reading the current report and also the previous one for the first of the Eco-passages we can't even imagine the amount of work that went into this project.   This was a monumental task to get through a full Environmental Assessment alone.  The difference in wildlife mortality has been profound.  Flattened corpses  used to be common place on the Causeway but it's much better now.  Awareness has also helped and we've noticed that people will stop their cars and let turtles cross the road now.

Before we get too carried away thinking this in an environmental group that actually has the greater good in mind, we'll have to double check their expense report.

2013 Financial Highlights :
Assets $104k | Liabilities $28k
$365k from the Feds/Province and Charitable tax receipts.
2 part time employees costing $27k

While the 2013 tax return wasn't as complete as it should be since it was missing the very important 5000 section, one would seem to think we've discovered a worthy charity.  It doesn't appear that they've climbed in bed with the Nature Conservancy of Canada or they'd have way more assets with very large donations from another charity.

Thanks for all of your hard work!

In 2012, the project costs were as follows :

In 2014, the project costs were as follows :