THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, June 17, 1995 TAG: 9506170344
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SCOTT HARPER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: Long : 121 lines
Tommy Hart has slogged through the swamps of Southeastern Virginia for much of his adult life, hunting stills for the state. He has seen plenty of snakes, but never a Dismal Swamp southeastern shrew.
But now, the former police officer and retired investigator for the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Department finds himself knee-deep in a bureaucratic quagmire over the federally protected shrew.
His case is unusual on several fronts and involves his retirement money, persimmon trees, the U.S. government and, of course, the finger-sized shrew, which was declared a threatened species in coastal Virginia and North Carolina in 1986.
Hart wants to cut trees for timber and golf clubs from 153 acres of forested swamp he bought for $35,000 in October in southern Chesapeake. For nearly a year, though, the government has said not so fast; the southeastern shrew may live there.
Enter Bob Rose, a biology professor at Old Dominion University who chairs a national committee to restore the anxious little shrew. After touring the Hart property, Rose told federal officials not to worry, that the proposed logging would actually help local shrews.
His reasoning: the furry mouselike mammal seems to thrive in new-growth forests, more so than in mature woodlands. Hart would ax mature hardwoods in his forest and replace them with a new blanket of loblolly pines.
``The near-term effects to the population would be beneficial,'' Rose wrote in a glowing response to federal regulators last winter.
However, Hart still is waiting for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Army Corps of Engineers to make a decision. They currently are ``in consultation'' over the matter, according to agency officials. Each agency says it is waiting forthe other to provide more information.
Meanwhile, in trying to pacify environmental concerns, Hart finds himself in trouble with the city of Chesapeake, which is about to take him to court.
For months, Hart has stored long concrete pillars, which are supposed to become the curbs of a small logging road into the forest, on his property. The curbs, he says, were suggested as a way to protect against the road spreading into more shrew habitat.
An environmental engineer with the Army Corps who has reviewed the road project said the curbs are a good idea, and that it seems only logical that the pillars remain on site until construction begins.
Chesapeake, however, sees the material as illegal construction debris. A city inspector has ticketed Hart for violating no-dumping rules, he said. A court hearing is pending.
``You know, I can see them doing all these things if they were meant to help (the shrew),'' Hart said recently during a tour of his land off Taft Road. ``But I don't see the sense in holding me up, making me go through all this, for something that even their top expert says will help the shrews.''
The Hart case comes as scientists in Virginia and North Carolina are studying whether the southeastern shrew should even be on a list of federally protected species.
Rose says the research will determine if the shrew is more widespread in the two states than was first thought by federal experts in 1986.
He believes the shrews are more prevalent, and, if the research proves him correct, scientists will petition for the shrew's removal from the list.
But that process could take years, and Hart is looking for an immediate resolution to his shrew dilemma. He notes caustically that his mortgage payments have not stopped during the delay.
Cindy Schultz, an endangered species specialist in Virginia for the Fish and Wildlife Service, said she is writing a formal ``biological opinion'' about the logging proposal, which probably will include some special protections.
She expects to issue her opinion soon, which would allow Hart to move forward with his project.
Schultz explained that while the logging may help the shrew in the long run, as Rose believes, shrews probably will be killed by heavy machinery and equipment brought into the forest. Under the federal Endangered Species Act, her office is charged with minimizing such lethal impacts on protected animals and plants.
``We're just following the rules laid out before us,'' she said.
Robert Berg, an environmental scientist with the Army Corps in Norfolk, said his hands are tied until he sees the biological opinion.
``We can't issue any decision until we know the impacts on the shrew,'' Berg said. Hart needs permission from the Corps to construct a logging road into the forest.
Hart approached Berg last fall to make sure his logging proposal was in line with federal regulations. Berg said the land was free from wetlands rules, but then saw that it fell within the boundaries of a map outlining shrew habitat.
``I about croaked,'' Hart recalls of that finding.
Hart bought the land from Georgia-Pacific, a large paper and timber company which had logged bits and pieces of the tract, he said.
He wants to subdivide 26 acres of the land into five lots. These uplands lie outside of the forest in an old farm field. His son wants to build a home on one lot and sell the other four.
A North Carolina company has agreed to buy the persimmon trees and build golf clubs from them, Hart says. He expects to earn $1,000 per 1,000 feet of persimmon board cut from the forest. But Hart says company officials are growing tired of delays.
While Hart has never seen a southeastern shrew on the job, he recently caught a shrew in a mouse trap in his garage. He's not sure if the shrew is a Dismal Swamp southeastern shrew, but he decided to keep it anyway. It now is stored in his freezer.
``I figured what the hell,'' he said. ``I guess I wanted something to remember all this.'' ILLUSTRATION: Federal regulators won't let Tommy Hart log some of his land in
Chesapeake because the protected southeastern shrew lives there. But
ODU professor Bob
Rose says the logging could help because the shrew prefers young
trees to the mature hardwoods Hart plans to remove.
[Color Photo]
Tommy Hart wants to cut trees for timber and golf clubs from 153
acres of forested swamp in Chesapeake.
PAUL AIKEN
Staff
Tommy Hart, a former police officer and retired investigator for the
Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Department, is knee-deep in a
bureaucratic quagmire over the federally protected shrew.
by CNB