
                         THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
                 Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, June 28, 1994                    TAG: 9406280295 
SECTION: LOCAL                     PAGE: B6    EDITION: FINAL  
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS 
DATELINE: 940628                                 LENGTH: NEWPORT NEWS

AGENCY OPPOSES BUILDING SCHOOL IN WETLANDS AREA

{LEAD} The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is opposing construction of a high school on wetlands populated by rare plant and animal species.

The agency lacks authority to block the project, but its recommendations carry weight with the agency that has that power: the Army Corps of Engineers.

{REST} Also, the wildlife service can delay the project by requiring that state or national, rather than regional, corps officials approve it.

The corps must approve the construction, scheduled to begin in September, because more than five acres of wetlands would be destroyed. The site near the York County line is in the Grafton Ponds area, which scientists say is the only wetland of its kind on the East Coast.

Grafton Ponds is dotted with ``sinkhole ponds,'' which fill with water during the winter and spring but dry up by summer. Karen Mayne, the wildlife service's Virginia supervisor, said the ponds are an important breeding ground for several threatened species of amphibians, including Mabee's salamander and the barking treefrog. Several types of rare plants also grow in the area.

Rosalynne Whitaker-Heck, a spokeswoman for the public schools, said studies commissioned by the school system since the wildlife service raised its objections show ``there would be little or no harm to any type of endangered species.''

The studies, she said, ``did not find conditions at the site that could nurture the breeding of those species.''

School officials also say a delay in building the school in the Denbigh area could also delay construction of a new East End high school. The new schools, to be built simultaneously and scheduled to open in the fall of 1996, are needed to relieve crowding in other schools.

by CNB