QOTD

Grand Isle Mayor David Camardelle is super excited about an airport he's getting the state to build.  They're building it along a stretch of threatened coastline which is weird. Also they are building it in a wildlife refuge famous for the density of migratory birds nesting there. That is even weirder.

But conservation groups and scientists worry that air traffic in and around the 1,145-acre refuge would scare off wildlife, and could lead to bird-plane collisions, making the facility dangerous for pilots and passengers. Federal aviation regulators have yet to weigh in on the proposal.

“With all the birds there, this poses a risk to aviation,” said Phil Stouffer, a conservation biologist at Louisiana State University. “Elmer’s Island is not a huge place, and this (airport) is plunked down in the middle of it. You can’t do that and expect the marsh and the rest of the refuge to function the way it did before.”

Wildlife strikes cost the U.S. aviation industry about $625 million each year and have killed nearly 500 people worldwide, according to a 2017 report led by federal wildlife scientists. Airports with high numbers of bird strikes typically require deterrents, including fencing, chemical sprays and noise cannons, or shrinking the types of habitats nearby that attract birds. Wildlife and Fisheries has not yet explored what measures might be required to curb bird strikes on Elmer’s Island.

I'm not sure what the appropriate process is for doing something like this. The article strongly implies that the Governor and the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries  may have circumvented it in order to avoid public input but that's not entirely clear. In any case, Camardelle seems proud.

Camardelle couldn’t give a timeline for construction. He said grass was cleared from the old airstrip last month and posts were installed to mark the new runways. He’s confident the airport will be built soon.

“I’m a hustler,” he said. “I’m going to hustle. It’s one of my top priorities.”