Proposed turnpike’s effects cannot be undone

The proposed turnpike presented by the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority last Tuesday, Feb. 26 is aggressive, destructive and unnecessary.

The turnpike is offered as a solution to problems it can’t address and will come at a greater cost than just the user fees. This turnpike will destroy the most important wildlife corridor in Cleveland County.

Wildlife roam from central Norman to Lake Thunderbird and back. The location of the turnpike would effectively cut off access to Lake Thunderbird, creating a desert island of sorts for wildlife bounded by I-35, I-240, Highway 9 and the new turnpike.

It will disrupt bald eagle nesting sites among many others, disrupt an important migration flyway stop for tens of thousands of migratory birds and destroy habitat for thousands of resident wild animals.

This turnpike will create unprecedented pollution from vehicle traffic and roadway runoff directly into the Lake Thunderbird watershed, polluting the drinking water for nearly half a million people and water that wildlife relies on equally.

The amount of impervious surface created by this turnpike will prevent adequate recharge of the underground water table — one of the key reasons East Norman is zoned to prevent homesteads on anything less than 10 acres. This will lead to increased wildfires and eventually, dry wells.

The proposed turnpike runs a quarter of a mile from WildCare Oklahoma’s front door. WildCare is the oldest and largest wildlife rehabilitation center in Oklahoma, providing help to thousands of Oklahomans rescuing injured, ill and orphaned wild animals from throughout the state.

It’s also one of the largest centers of its kind in North America. The pollution, noise and stress this will create will likely make the location untenable for the work we do and have been doing since 1984. Only three other states have centers larger or more prolific than WildCare, and it seems a tragic waste to allow a road to destroy what thousands of Oklahomans have built over nearly 40 years.

While we speak for wildlife, we are equally concerned about the thousands of people who will have their homes needlessly destroyed, become displaced and/or lose the investments they have made in their homes and properties.

One unofficial estimate of the human toll includes the destruction of 227 homes, 306 other structures (buildings and barns) and 349 individual parcels of land, and depreciation of the value of 1,910 homes and 814 other buildings within half a mile of this proposed roadway not destroyed, but negatively affected.

Everyone is better off when they have access to nature, clean air and clean water, and caring for and about wildlife makes humanity more humane. And we know that when people do better, wildlife does better.

The turnpike will destroy this for people living in Slaughterville, Lexington, Norman and Moore for this generation and the next. Once this is done, this level of destruction and permanent land degradation cannot be “undone.”

INGER GIUFFRIDA Norman Ward 6 resident Executive director, WildCare Oklahoma