Edward Poitevent says protective regulations could thwart $36 million of development on his land
GULFPORT, Miss. -- Edward Poitevent tried again Tuesday night to convince the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that designating his family's land in St. Tammany Parish as critical habitat for the Mississippi gopher frog is a bad idea and one that could thwart development on the land to the tune of $36 million. Fish and Wildlife officials at a public hearing in Gulfport described the need to find new homes for the endangered frog, of which only 100 adults remain in the wild.
View full sizeEdward Poitevent is fighting plans by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to expropriate this family-owned timberland along Louisiana 36 northeast of Lacombe. The agency has suggested designating some 1,500 acres belonging to the Poitevent family as critical habitat, with the remaining 5,000 or so acres located on public and private land in four southern Mississippi counties.
The agency allowed each of the night's almost 20 speakers five minutes to make comments. Arriving at the microphone with a thick booklet containing his concerns, Poitevent tried to summarize his thoughts in a handful of excerpts from the materials.
He noted that his family's land -- a swath of timberland along Louisiana 36, north of Slidell -- doesn't contain the frog or the elements needed for the frog's survival, and that the land will remain in its present condition until at least 2043, when a timber lease that Weyerhaeuser Co, holds is set to expire.
Poitevent also said the land is not essential to the stocky, wart-covered frog's conservation, as much of the property cited is in Mississippi, and the agency has yet to seek critical habitat in Alabama, where the frog also once lived.
Poitevent has said he would not allow the frogs on his land in any event, as his right under the law. Whether a landowner is agreeable is not a consideration, as the biologists are required to look at both occupied and unoccupied lands under the Endangered Species Act.
Poitevent said the potential $36 million impact on a single family is disproportionate, and noted as well that the designation would cost that the parish sales and property tax dollars.
View full sizeThe Mississippi gopher frog is stocky, is about three inches long, and ranges in color from black to brown or gray, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service. It is covered with dark spots and warts. And it needs protection, the service says.And while officials have said the family still would be able to develop its land as it sees fit, Poitevent said 80 percent of the land is wet and he believes that the required consultation with the agency should it attempt to obtain a federal wetlands permit likely would result in its rejection.
Before Poitevent took to the microphone, his cousin, William Rudolf, and representatives from Weyerhaeuser Co., which, in addition to the timber lease, owns a small portion of the land in St. Tammany Parish, noted their reasons why the agency should exclude the property from the designation.
Rudolf said the designation shouldn't proceed based on the fact that no one has seen the frog in St. Tammany Parish for nearly 50 years and that the longleaf pine the frog needs to live doesn't exist on the land.
In addition, he noted that the agency's own economic analysis shows that the designation could preclude all development on the land, causing the landowners to lose as much as $36 million. The analysis shows that the designation would have little financial effect on the other 11 locations proposed as new critical habitat.
Several members of the Mississippi Tea Party also spoke in opposition to the plan, calling the Endangered Species Act unconstitutional, accusing the government of taking people's property without proper justification and expressing outrage about the amount of taxpayer money being spent to save a frog.
A few others spoke on the frog's behalf, saying that it must be preserved.
Matt Rota, representing the Gulf Restoration Network, asked the agency to reconsider a slight reduction in the size of the proposed critical habitat -- it changed in the past few months from roughly 7,000 to 6,500, as well as to increase the size of the habitat where the frogs now live, in Glen's Pond in the DeSoto National Forest, in Harrison County, Miss.
Joseph Pechmann, a biology professor at Western Carolina University who has studied the gopher frog, said little suitable habitat for the frog remains and that spreading the population over a larger geographic area will enhance its chances of survival.
He also noted that the Poitevent family's 1,500 acres are just 3.5 percent of its 45,000 total acres in St. Tammany. Pechmann said the designation on such a small portion of the land shouldn't pose a hardship and noted that, had it been worth $36 million, it likely would be developed by now and not a tree farm.
The Fish and Wildlife Service has reopened the public comment period in the matter through March 2, and then officials will make the best recommendation for the conservation and recovery of the frog. The secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior will make the final call on the matter, with any new rule set to appear in the Federal Register by May 30.