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TOM WHEELER:

Welcome to the Econews Report. I'm your host this week, Tom Wheeler, Executive Director of EPIC, the Environmental Protection Information Center. And joining me is my friend, Steve Blackledge of Environment America or Environment California, which one are you?

STEVE BLACKLEDGE:

You know, both, Tom, and thank you for having me. Yeah, so I'm with Environment America working on national issues, but I work closely with our state group in California, Environment California. So certain events, I'm clearly there representing Environment California.

WHEELER:

And you're all part of this kind of happy family, which is the environment, that next word descriptor. Yeah.

BLACKLEDGE:

Yeah, yeah, we're a network. Environment America is the national group. We've got 30 different state affiliates, all of them doing state-level and sometimes local work to protect the environment. And then Environment America is also involved in Congress and bills there. And we have one mission. It's a cleaner, greener environment. And in California, we're focused clearly within our state borders.

WHEELER:

And am I not mistaken, y'all are an outgrowth of the Public Interest Research Group universe. So the PIRGs, if you're familiar.

BLACKLEDGE:

Yeah, and some of your listeners will be, and some of them won't be, but we're part of the PIRG network, or we sprang from, I should say, the PIRG network. And the idea was that the PIRG network was focused on public interest issues, and the environment was becoming a bigger and bigger challenge and a bigger focus, and it needed its own home, and we gave it one.

WHEELER:

Gotcha. All right. Well, so I have you on here today because we're gonna be talking about wildlife crossings. And you may have, to your listener, driven down a road somewhere once and you saw kind of what looks like an overpass, but there was a sign that said it was a wildlife crossing. You might just be familiar with these. These are, I think, a popular component of social media, videos of animals safely making it across a road. And it's a movement in the United States to try to reduce conflicts with humans and reduce conflicts between drivers and wildlife for the benefit of both motorists and for our four-legged or two-legged non-human friends. So, Steve, let's talk about road ecology, the impact of roads on wildlife, and then we can get into the why of wildlife crossings.

BLACKLEDGE:

That sounds great.

WHEELER:

All right, yeah, go ahead.

BLACKLEDGE:

All right, well, you know, it's funny. Your lead-in reminds me of that video that it was a coyote and a badger together crossing underneath a road in a wildlife tunnel. And everyone went gaga over that. Like, it was just so cool. They were like buddies, or so it seemed, crossing at nighttime to get to the other side for whatever purpose. But I think one of the reasons why it went so well and why people love that is people love nature, people love wildlife. We're fascinated by the many and different types of creatures we share our planet with. And if, you know, if you go to a zoo or an aquarium and you're gonna mostly be looking at the animals, right? But if you look a little bit at the humans, you will just see on their faces the wonderment and awe that comes from just being there and seeing that.

And so we all love animals and we wanna care for them. At the same time, we have roads and our roads, we end up with roadkill. And we've come to accept that as normal because we do need our roads and we need to get from point A to point B and we need our goods and services to get from point A to point B. And so we end up with roadkill. And the numbers aren't small, Tom. Each year in the US, there are 2 million collisions, approximately, with a large animal, like a deer or an elk up closer to you, bears and other large animals. And each day, there's about a million collisions with a vertebrate animal of some size. So think squirrels and newts on the smaller size, then you move up to turtles and coyotes and deer, elk, bear, moose, et cetera. So a million collisions of an animal with some size.

And this is obviously awful for the animals because they end up dead, but I'm sure a lot of your listeners are going, well, yeah, but what about us? Because they've been in some of these collisions. And yeah, the truth is there are about 25,000 Americans injured each year in a wildlife collision, about 200 who die, and billions of dollars worth of damage in auto, to our cars, to property, and other billions of costs, or part of those costs, too, are hospital costs. So it's a big deal. And again, historically, we've said, well, what are we gonna do? Now we're starting to get answers.

WHEELER:

So wildlife crossings can come in a variety of forms. I described kind of the classic version, the thing that looks like an overpass where large mammals like deer elk are able to cross above. We also have other types of wildlife crossings like large culverts, either intentionally or unintentionally, that can allow for smaller life like newts or mice or other lower to the ground animals to be able to pass underneath the road. These are all critical and they're all different, and they fit different kinds of life. How do we know where wildlife crossings should should be put in? And how do we know how they should be designed to kind of fit the life that we want to facilitate to cross the road?

BLACKLEDGE:

Yeah, if we're gonna spend the money, and we should spend the money on wildlife crossings, whether that's a bridge or a redesigned culvert or building a new, putting a culvert in for the first time, we sure need to know where to put those things. And so first point is just, or the first, the start of it is to do the research, to study, to follow the animals' daily movements, to follow their migrations, to study all this, to know where are they gonna cross, where do they wanna cross, and that's where we should build the crossing. That's point one. And then point two is fencing, not for some animals, like fencing probably isn't gonna do a lot for turtles, although it might, but for deer or antelope or even bison, fencing can make a big difference because you can put the crossing exactly where it should go and then use some additional fencing to steer or herd them right into the right location. So that's the first step. And then, yeah, they look so different.

California's building -- and it might actually be finished, it's close to finished if it's not -- an elk bridge up near north of Weed on US 97. And I say elk bridge, but it's gonna be used by all sorts of animals. I got the chance to tour down in LA recently the mountain lion bridge that they're putting above Highway or US 101, the Annenberg Crossing, and that's huge. And it's one of the two biggest, once it's completed, will be one of the two biggest bridges or crossings in the US. So they look like that, but my son, as part of a high school class, went and toured a culvert, as you described it, near Sacramento out near the town of Lincoln. And it had this aqueduct running through it, a fish passage as part of it. And then it had land on the other half for deer and coyotes and everything else too. So they really do look different.

WHEELER:

So, when trying to determine where to put these, I imagine roadkill data is useful. And who are the sort of entities, the agencies, the folks who are thinking about wildlife crossings, proposing these things, and moving these projects forward?

BLACKLEDGE:

So yes, data is important. So you get DOTs, Departments of Transportation, and they're looking at the roadkill data, but also in concert with wildlife agencies. So California Fish and Game here, or in my original state, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, or whatever it may be that's in charge of the wildlife, and they're looking at and studying migration patterns and movement patterns of wildlife. And so part of this is getting agencies to work together, to collaborate, and to coordinate. I should also say that counties have proposed wildlife crossing based on the data that they have, and we've seen tribes propose wildlife crossings as well, based on the data that they have. So lots of entities, government entities and other types, are interested in this.

WHEELER:

So folks locally, if you're in the Humboldt Bay region or in the north state of California, you might be familiar with the wonderful elk herds near Redwood National Park. Caltrans Region 1, our local Caltrans office, is doing their own investigation of a potential elk overpass over Highway 101 near the Red Schoolhouse by Redwood National Park. So we also are caught up in the enthusiasm over these wildlife crossings. I think that if you're a Department of Transportation, these are terribly exciting because as you said, we have hundreds of collisions a day that sometimes are causing injuries to motorists as well as death to wildlife. And if you're a DOT and you're part of the crew that picks up all the roadkill, I imagine that you're pretty excited about this too, to have to deal less with death.

But there's maybe not the best built-in funding mechanisms for these wildlife crossings, and groups like yours are working to change that both in appropriations and through other sort of legislation that better internalizes, requires these sorts of structures be built. Let's zoom out to the national level. How does funding from the Department of Highways or the National Highway Administration trickle down and help to build these, or how does it fail to help to build these?

BLACKLEDGE:

The first time ever, back in 2021, Congress put into a transportation bill money for wildlife crossings. And we were so excited, states were excited, counties were excited. This was a new thing. And frankly, it was overdue. On one hand, wildlife crossings are a fairly new concept. Like when I was born, there wasn't one yet in the US, but it's coming along rapidly and people really are enthused about these things. And so Congress put $350 million over a five-year period into the transportation bill. And that money was for grants for the states. It's been really exciting to watch. A lot of states have applied. 29 states have received funding, including California, from this pot of money. And it's been everything from a wildlife crossing in North Carolina for the highly endangered red wolf to Ocelot Crossing Research, and then actually starting the process of building the crossings for ocelots in Texas, money for Florida panthers in Florida, alligators also in Florida. And I can't even imagine hitting an alligator if driving down the road.

WHEELER:

Yeah, that's a speed bump or something.

BLACKLEDGE:

Yeah, he had that one.

WHEELER:

BLACKLEDGE:

be awful and strange and probably quite dangerous. Turtle crossings in Minnesota, these are super cool. Tom, they cut a divot in the road, just a rectangular divot in the road, and then put like some sort of metal grating over top of it. And if you can guide the turtles with, again, some fencing to that spot, they'll use it. I should also say, and this doesn't answer your question, I'll get to your question. The research has shown that animals are finding and using the wildlife crossings faster than the wildlife biologist anticipated. So they just figure it out. And even to go a deeper dive on that, for the crossing they're building down in north of LA for the mountain lions, they're getting the actual soil composition and pH, and they're taking seed samples from both sides of the road so they can get the exact type of plants up there.

So it just feels natural. And their hope is wildlife don't even know they're on a wildlife crossing. They're just on land going up and over. But money is needed for all this, to answer your question. And the funding is there, but it expires at the end of September of this year. It's been so popular. We truly wanna make sure that Congress, in a very bipartisan manner, and we're hopeful about that, sees the value of this and continues to put money, and indeed more money, into wildlife crossings.

WHEELER:

And you mentioned bipartisan, this seems like a great bipartisan issue, right? If you are a Republican, you have constituents that ride motorcycles that don't want to run into a large ungulate. If you're a Democrat, you care about those same motorists, you care about wildlife. Wildlife concerns often go across Democratic Republican lines. Any reflections on what it's like to work on a conservation issue where there is truly kind of bipartisan support? Because I feel like often what we do as environmentalists, often we're stuck with the Democratic Party, but here it is a broader tent, or hopefully it's a broader tent.

BLACKLEDGE:

I mean, this feels almost apolitical. Like, people love building things. Crossings are so darn pragmatic and common sense. It's got a human health angle. You're right, it's got motorcycle riders and drivers and whatnot who care about this. We did a survey a year ago, and we went out into rural parts of America, trying to get near crossings, and surveyed people and asked what they thought, including we went up to Weed, California, but this was a nationwide survey. And we found 87% of everyone surveyed said, yes, we should invest more in these wildlife crossings. This seems common sense. So that's been really fun and nice.

WHEELER:

You are listening to the Econews Report. Talking about wildlife crossings and joining me is my friend, Steve Boklage of Environment America or Environment California.

BLACKLEDGE:

And then it's reflected at the federal level too, where you see bills like, there's a bill in the House to renew the Wildlife Crossing Program. And the sponsors of it are Ryan Zinke, a Republican from Montana, and Don Beyer, a Democrat from Virginia. There are two different Senate bills, both of which would renew the program and fund it at at least 100 million per year for the next five years. And in total, there are three Republicans and three Democrats. So, let's see if I can get all the names. Senator Heinrich from New Mexico, Senator Kramer from North Dakota. Let me make sure I have the right Dakota because I sometimes can mess that up. Also Brooks from Maryland. I was right about North Dakota. Senator Merkley from Oregon, just north of the border there. John Curtis, a Republican Senator from Utah. And Senator Sheehy from Montana, a Republican. So just, it feels great. The key thing though, is there are a lot of competing priorities. We got to get this thing across the finish line.

WHEELER:

So there's funding from the feds, and that's going to be critical because any sort of highway infrastructure project is all overwhelmingly federally funded. But there's also roles that the state of California could play in getting these things built. And I actually think that California has been a little bit slower than some other states in adopting wildlife crossings as a tool for wildlife conservation. We've seen kind of an explosive rise in these in the last five years, but we saw the progress and potential from other states first. So what is the role of the state to facilitate these wildlife crossings? And then we can go into what's before the California legislature and funding decisions and so on.

BLACKLEDGE:

Yeah, the states do have a role. Even on the federal money, there's a state match. So there's a state role there, too. In California, there is a program, a habitat fund that's through the California Wildlife Board. And that's broadly for habitat, not just wildlife crossings. But that funding has been used for wildlife crossings. That's been great. Some of the projects have received substantial private dollars, too. And that's wonderful. So if you're, when you and I win the lottery, and we have extra money to spend on such things, and would just want to spend it on something like this, what a great thing. It's tangible. It's concrete, literally. And it's really important. So yeah, there has to be some combination of federal, state, private money all going to this. And California, yeah, probably has been behind Wyoming, funny enough, and Utah. But we're catching up. And we're hopeful.

WHEELER:

We are absolutely catching up. I think that there are over 100 projects in the works in the state of California for wildlife crossings. These go from the big kind of splashy, impressive overpass types to the smaller projects. How can we get Caltrans to better internalize the concept of wildlife connectivity in their ordinary planning decisions? Because there's so many Caltrans projects every day that go forward. And if there is some sort of requirement to have this be another one of the things that they are required to plan for in their projects, that would be quite useful, right?

BLACKLEDGE:

Very useful, but you also said another one of the things, and perhaps sometimes they resist it, like, oh, here's another thing we have to look at. So there's a few different things. When we spoke with Caltrans, and we've been doing tours of wildlife crossings, we have one scheduled tomorrow where we're going to get on an airplane and fly over one down near San Diego. We did a tour of a bridge that is being built up and over the high-speed rail line down south.

So when we do these tours, we often coordinate with Caltrans. And the great thing is you talk to the local person who's in charge of the thing, man, are they excited, and won't stop talking about how great this is. So I think we're getting there. Just culturally, I think we're getting there where people see how cool these are and how important they are. In addition to what you said, the Caltrans may not be always thinking about it, or it might be yet another thing for them to think about. There is also the money thing. And one thing I also want to emphasize on that is these crossings can help pay for themselves and perhaps sometimes fully pay for themselves. So Washington State University did a study looking at overpasses only in the state of Washington and found that each crossing was saving somewhere between, and this is annually, between about 250 thousand dollars up to half, 500 thousand dollars per year because there are fewer accidents and there's not the car damage, the property damage, the hospital bills, etc.

WHEELER:

Well, to that, that's a fantastic point. And I think that bringing it back to simple dollars and cents is also is often the best way to get the legislature's attention. So, California legislature, are there any things before the legislature in this session that are related to wildlife crossings? And is there any sort of actions that you can put people who are excited to see more wildlife crossings to bear on?

BLACKLEDGE:

There's a couple things. Last year, so not as much this year, but last year, there was a bill by Senator Blake Spear that would renew the $30 million a year for California's Wildlife Habitat Fund. And that was set to, that would have at some point expired. It was created by voters via the ballot in 1990. It would have expired and lawmakers voted overwhelmingly, like near, with near unanimous support, they voted to continue that program through 2035. So that's $30 million a year, not just for wildlife crossings, to be clear, but for crossings and other wildlife habitat projects. There was a bill a few years ago called the Room to Roam Act that requires better coordination between state agencies. That's important. We'll continue to look at both funding and policy in California. This particular session, there won't be as much on crossings.

WHEELER:

Something that I hear from EPIC members when I talk about wildlife crossings is that they're very excited that these are going in. Then they'll say, it's great that there's something on Highway 97, but here, close to my house, I see this repeat issue. I've seen a dead black bear five times at this spot in the road where there's not good visibility and there's patches of good bear habitat on either side of the road and they just love to cross there. How would you advise somebody who has an idea about a particular wildlife crossing, how could they advance their own sort of local project?

BLACKLEDGE:

I want to answer that and I also want to get back, I forgot to answer your question about actions from the last time, so I'll do both. Show and share your data with county officials, highway, sheriff's offices and others so that we can accumulate that data and make a proposal for how we might build a crossing of some nature. And again, it doesn't always have to be a bridge up and over, so we can think smaller. Oftentimes a culvert or tunnel underneath is cheaper, not always. So share that knowledge, especially if, as you say, it's in roughly the same area time and again. Then that tells us, OK, perhaps here is the spot where we need something. So be the squeaky wheel, I guess, but just share the information.

And to the extent that local entities don't know it, encourage them to apply for federal or state or whatever type of highway funds there might be or wildlife crossing funds that there may be. And then in terms of actions from your previous question, we do need people not to share the data, but to keep pushing lawmakers and decision makers to fund this. It's a newer idea. We can't let it die on the vine. We can't let it be something that was funded once and it goes away. State money is important. I would argue the big fight right now is the federal pot of money, because that can be quite significant and it's aimed at the states. It's for the states. And so that's so important, because what we want to get is to the point where we just all know when we have money for roads, we also need money for crossings because roads lead to wildlife vehicle collisions. That's where we need to get where it's just I mean, it's already a no brainer. We need to just make it sort of automatic, though, that that becomes the reality.

WHEELER:

So when you were talking about the bipartisan bills in Congress, I didn't hear any names of any California legislators, I don't think. Yeah, I was going to say, where do our senators from the state of California and representatives, where are they standing on this issue and does anyone need a little bit of encouragement?

BLACKLEDGE:

Well, encouragement is always great because, again, even if a lawmaker's with us, there are competing priorities that they have. And so, yeah, a nudge or encouragement or a squeaky wheel, all of that stuff is good. Senator Padilla is involved in this space already. He has a bill, a wildlife connectivity bill called the Wildlife Movement Through Partnerships Act. He introduced it last session. He hasn't yet introduced it this session, but he will. What that bill is about is about protecting and enhancing habitat along the migratory routes of animals, but it also seeks to do it in a way that's consistent with a wildlife crossing pilot program, the one that we've been talking about. So he's clearly a leader in this space. Senator Schiff, too, maybe hasn't carved out his leadership, per se. I would be surprised if he's not 100% with us. It'd be great, though, for your listeners and followers to give them both a nudge. Why not, right? And I believe I should know this, and correct me if I'm wrong, Congressman LaMalfa.

WHEELER:

No, no, no, we're Huffman.

BLACKLEDGE:

Oh, you're Huffman, oh, he goes, oh, okay, okay, I apologize. No. Well, yeah, Representative Huffman is a huge environmentalist, he'll be great on this. But again, a nudge in the direction of, you've got competing priorities, let's make sure this one happens, is always, it's gonna be good. And then Congressman LaMalfa, who we recently lost suddenly, who died quite suddenly just earlier this year, some of your listeners will be in his district. He interestingly might've, we actually had a theory that he might come on board and be a champ, but we didn't get a chance to test that out, sadly.

WHEELER:

I mean, his district is one that has that Weed wildlife crossing on Highway 97. So I imagine that he probably would understand the issue. Okay, so Environment California, Environment America are pushing for more funding. Who are some of the other groups that folks should know about involved in this space that they should follow on social media or help support with their donations?

BLACKLEDGE:

There's all sorts of groups, National Wildlife Federation and their state groups. There's the National Parks and Conservation and that organization. There's interesting Trout Unlimited hunting and fishing groups. And we even had a chance to talk too much about fishing, but some of these crossings are redesigning culverts to make them better for fish passage under roads. And that's super cool too. And then these aren't groups that your listeners would give donations to per se, and they're not even nonprofits.

But I'm hopeful that groups and companies, I should say, like Harley Davidson, which produces motorcycles. And you don't want to hit a deer if you're driving down the highway at 65. So both motorcycle clubs, and we've actually worked with some in support of this, but a company like Harley Davidson could get on board. And Amazon, with all its delivery trucks up and down our roads, man, they should get on board as well, as well as FedEx and U-Haul, car rental agencies like Avis. This should be right up their alley. State Farm Insurance and other insurance companies that do auto insurance. So I'm not saying they're all going to get involved, and I'm not saying they're all going to be big advocates for this. But we're working to help persuade and convince some of these companies to be a little more vocal on this one. And along with the groups you've mentioned, from National Wildlife Federation to Trout Unlimited and so forth, just be more vocal and some of these companies be more vocal and help us get this across the finish line.

WHEELER:

All right, well, I am excited to see more of these pop up across our great state. It's always a bummer and a reminder of the drastic environmental impact that roads have. When I'm traveling and I see roadkill because roadkill is a preventable thing through things like wildlife crossing. So we just need to make the investment. We need to make the strategic choices to make this necessary to make the funding easier and so on. Steve, any last thoughts before you go?

BLACKLEDGE:

Thank you for having me. I think, again, this is such a common sense issue. We've assumed roadkill is inevitable. As you say, it's not. So let's do more.

WHEELER:

this. All right. Well, Steve Blackledge of Environment America, thank you so much for joining the show. And join us again next week, listeners, for more environmental news from the North State of California.