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Shovel This: Your Government Spent $205,000 to Move a $16 Shrub
PJ Media ^ | 4-13-2012 | Bryan Preston

Posted on 04/13/2012 3:56:03 PM PDT by smoothsailing

April 13, 2012

Shovel This: Your Government Spent $205,000 to Move a $16 Shrub

Bryan Preston

They thought it was extinct. Other than probably millions of the same shrub living in yards all over the place, they were right.

“In October 2009, an ecologist identified a plant growing in a concrete-bound median strip along Doyle Drive in the Presidio as Arctostaphylos franciscana,” the U.S. Department of Interior reported in the Aug. 10, 2010 edition of the Federal Register. “The plant’s location was directly in the footprint of a roadway improvement project designed to upgrade the seismic and structural integrity of the south access to the Golden Gate Bridge.

“The translocation of the Arctostaphylos franciscana plant to an active native plant management area of the Presidio was accomplished, apparently successfully and according to plan, on January 23, 2010,” the Interior Department reported.

The bush—a Franciscan manzanita—was a specimen of a commercially cultivated species of shrub that can be purchased from nurseries for as little as $15.98 per plant. The particular plant in question, however, was discovered in the midst of the City of San Francisco, in the median strip of a highway, and was deemed to be the last example of the species in the “wild.”

Prior to the discovery of this “wild” Franciscan manzanita, the plant had been considered extinct for as long as 62 years–extinct, that is, outside of people’s yards and botanical gardens.

So they dug it up, and they moved it to an undisclosed location, and put a fence around it, and are paying labs to create offspring that will undoubtedly show up in the hedges of government offices from one coast to the other.


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To: beethovenfan

It, It, It!


21 posted on 04/13/2012 4:51:55 PM PDT by Pontiac (The welfare state must fail because it is contrary to human nature and diminishes the human spirit.)
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To: hal ogen
after beating them with branches from the shrub.

You are going to need a permit for that. Not for the beating, but to use the branches from the shrub. An ESA evaluation, with approvals from local, state, and federal officials is likely a must. You will need to show such beatings will not harm the plant and if there are any negative or positive impacts on the shrub. You will also need to complete a non-beating alternative.

Once you get those approvals, the agencies that approved your use of the branches will likely be sued at all (local, state, and federal) levels. One or more of those will issue an injunction against proceeding until more detailed analyses of the use of the branches can be completed and refute the evidence that use of such branches will not endanger the species as a whole, even though commonly found in yards and plant nursery's, but will need to refine your analysis to experts on such shrubs that grow unexpetedly in road medians.

Your opposition will have such experts.

If, you still have the energy to use such branches after that, you will likely be sued since you didn't consider the social justice impats of using a part of the shrub found in the median. You will need to evaluate what if any other uses by disadvantaged populations could have or might in the future occur both with and without your use of parts of the shrub.

Once you get through that, you will definately need to identify shrub part recycling plans and mitigate the CO2 emissions from the action of using the branches plus all of the extra CO2 emission you made that caused 40,000 pages of legal motions, miles driven, paper used, etc., that you caused to happen by wanting to use a part of the shrub in the first place.

22 posted on 04/13/2012 4:55:23 PM PDT by !1776!
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To: smoothsailing

The second “shovel ready job” that O Bammie provided.

You know the first.


23 posted on 04/13/2012 4:57:46 PM PDT by hadaclueonce (you are paying 12% more for fuel because of Ethanol. Smile big Corn Lobby,)
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To: smoothsailing

This is perfectly logical to those on the left I bet. Think of all the jobs it created moving the bush.

lol.


24 posted on 04/13/2012 4:59:16 PM PDT by GeronL (The Right to Life came before the Right to Pursue Happiness)
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To: smoothsailing
These are the very same lightweights who will be determining which medical and surgical treatments I can get,who can perform them,and when they'll happen.
25 posted on 04/13/2012 5:04:12 PM PDT by Gay State Conservative (Unlike Mrs Obama,I've Been Proud Of This Country My *Entire* Life!)
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To: GeronL

Jobs? One job for one day for a good gardener, perhaps. That’s it, to move a bush. .... Oh yes, all the construction jobs building the yacht for the crooked political hack that stole these 205,000 dineros of our tax money. I guess we have to count those jobs, eh?


26 posted on 04/13/2012 5:19:50 PM PDT by faithhopecharity
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To: jazusamo
This fiasco reflects the mindset of the Bay Area leftists perfectly though many of them don’t care for bushes.


STAY OUT DA BUSHES!!!

:o)

27 posted on 04/13/2012 5:26:15 PM PDT by smoothsailing
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To: faithhopecharity

I bet it does count as a “job” to the administration


28 posted on 04/13/2012 5:28:12 PM PDT by GeronL (The Right to Life came before the Right to Pursue Happiness)
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To: smoothsailing
STAY OUT DA BUSHES!!!

LOL! That's hilarious.

Tiger found out just how hazardous bushes and golf clubs can be.

29 posted on 04/13/2012 5:36:08 PM PDT by jazusamo (Character assassination is just another form of voter fraud: Thomas Sowell)
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To: CaptainPhilFan

Daniel Gluesenkamp

Talk about obsession, man, that clown is eaten up.


30 posted on 04/13/2012 5:38:29 PM PDT by smoothsailing
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To: goseminoles

Bush’s fault!


31 posted on 04/13/2012 5:40:33 PM PDT by Texas Songwriter (Ia)
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To: smoothsailing

LOL That rocks!


32 posted on 04/13/2012 6:12:45 PM PDT by stilloftyhenight
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To: ptsal

Yep


33 posted on 04/13/2012 6:16:08 PM PDT by freekitty (Give me back my conservative vote; then find me a real conservative to vote for)
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To: smoothsailing
They have too much of our money. They can't think of enough stupid sh&$ to spend it on!
34 posted on 04/13/2012 6:20:12 PM PDT by liberalh8ter (If Barack has a memory like a steel trap, why can't he remember what the Constitution says?)
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To: ptsal

And then have to go through the hassle and expense of of an audit?

You first. ;>)


35 posted on 04/13/2012 6:27:54 PM PDT by Gator113 (***YOU GAVE it to Obama. I would have voted for NEWT.~Just livin' life, my way~)
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To: smoothsailing

San Francisco? They’ll have smoked it before they can study it.

“It’s great stuff, man.....I saw myself giving birth, man.”

“Larry was looking in the mirror when he was on the toilet again.”


36 posted on 04/13/2012 6:41:24 PM PDT by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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To: smoothsailing

I’ve lived in Cali for over 30 yrs. The closest I’ve been to San Fran is Santa Cruz but if I could find out where this bush is I’d drive over just to set in on fire.


37 posted on 04/13/2012 11:37:01 PM PDT by abigailsmybaby ("To understan' the livin', you got ta commune wit' da dead." Minerva)
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To: GeronL

Yeah, Caltrans. 1 person working, 20 supervising.


38 posted on 04/13/2012 11:40:04 PM PDT by abigailsmybaby ("To understan' the livin', you got ta commune wit' da dead." Minerva)
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To: smoothsailing
Shovel This: Your Government Spent $205,000 to Move a $16 Shrub

Ahhhh, just like the good old days. Reminds me of when I was kid growing up in Chicago and watching a Crew of Six City Workers ('Dept of Streets & San.') patching a 12" Pothole.

Some things never change.

39 posted on 04/14/2012 4:09:44 AM PDT by Condor51 (Yo Hoffa, so you want to 'take out conservatives'. Well okay Jr - I'm your Huckleberry)
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To: CaptainPhilFan
Okay, now that I've read the “other side” I can see why they wanted to save the plant.

But $205,000? That's insane.

What possible reason could there be for not having state employees in the plant management and highway departments do the labor, perhaps under the supervision of some experts in the species to make sure something didn't go wrong? I can see special procedures to make sure the sole remaining known specimen of a near-extinct wild version of a now-domesticated plant doesn't get killed in the transplantation process, but that would be in the category of maybe a few thousand dollars of staff time, not $205,000.

Somebody needs to give answers.

40 posted on 04/14/2012 7:46:50 AM PDT by darrellmaurina
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