Wait the reporting of the endangered species is done by private companies???
Comment on Guerrilla plantfare
terranoid@lemmy.cafe 1 day agoI knew someone who briefly worked in this field and quit due to the corruption.
One day he does find endangered shit. He tells his boss, “hey you know they have so and so on this land, actually you gotta call this one.”
The boss sighs and is like, “let me explain how this works. We can do this and call it out, but next time this guy has a big project, he’s not contracting out to us. And the other guys will definitely let it slide. Either way, they’re building, and we end up going out of business eventually. You might win this one time, but eventually it won’t matter.”
owsei@programming.dev 1 day ago
lightnsfw@reddthat.com 1 day ago
There’s probably some grossly underfunded and under staffed auditing organization that has no teeth but makes everyone who’s not really paying attention feel better.
tyler@programming.dev 1 day ago
That dude was just corrupt. My wife has to deal stuff this exact stuff and they literally reroute, build in a different area, or have to take extreme precautions like not building at that time of year that will most affect the endangered species.
Track_Shovel@slrpnk.net 1 day ago
I am an environmental consultant, too. You’re correct that they often re-route or change their designs based on habitat, though this isn’t always the case. They can determine if the impact is major, or if it can be reversed or off-set. An example would be a mine that goes through woodland caribou habitat. They’ll still mine the fuck out of it, but then they’ll be required to reclaim it back to what it was. The rub is that people think reclamation is a fast or sure thing, but it’s neither. Some ecosystems, like those that support caribou are really hard to re-establish, but operators can get on with a commitment to restore, and a couple of contingencies in case the reclamation doesn’t work.
@terranoid@lemmy.cafe yes, this is a thing in consulting, but often with the smaller, more cowboy firms. Bigger firms can push back a bit, and say ‘hey, look. we really don’t recommend this, here’s the risks’ or flat refuse service if they can take the hit.
@owsei@programming.dev yes, generally, consultants are hired to do things like rare plant surveys or wildlife sweeps. It’s not the EPA or other regulators doing this and the operators don’t have the capacity or expertise to do it themselves usually.
tyler@programming.dev 18 hours ago
What makes their story unbelievable is that they said “one day they find endangered shit”. Environmental companies find endangered species every time they leave the office. It’s not an unusual occurrence. I’m not sure if my wife has had a project without at least one reroute in the past decade much less her whole career.