The Army has been creating an island since 1998 on the Northeast coast of the United States. Slowly, the US Army Corps of Engineers built dikes to establish its perimeter. They spent more than a decade filling them with mud.
Its name: Poplar island. It seems like a perfect place for a mystery movie with secret labs and mutants. Right now, the island is a wildlife sanctuary, home of 170 species of birds “including terns and bald eagles” as well as hundreds of diamondback terrapins.
Meanwhile back at the farm, that pothole down the road…..yep, still there. Hope they built the dikes a little stronger than those in New Orlean’s.
Maybe this is where the aliens will land.
Looky what I found by googling:
Poplar Island Paul S. Sarbanes
Environmental Restoration Site
No doubt some kind of earmark spending by members of Congress.
You silly person, that’s a cover up. It’s the exit point for a tunnel to D.C., so those elitist politician pricks can be evacuated before the slaves in cars. No, seriously, sometimes the posts on here are a little tinfoil hattish.
Just sometimes…??
In 1994, an interagency group, including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,the Maryland Port Administration, and Federal and State environmental agencies studied the feasibility of using Poplar Island as a beneficial use project for dredged material from the Chesapeake Bay navigation channels leading to the Port of Baltimore. Following the necessary environmental studies, it was determined that rebuilding Poplar Island and restoring over 1,000 acres of diverse habitat was a viable beneficial use of dredged material.
In September of 1996, the project was approved for construction. A Project Cooperation Agreement was executed with the State of Maryland in April 1997. Construction began in 1998 and the project is expected to be completed by 2027.
29 years worth of work for the Corps of Engineers.
A Project Cooperation Agreement was executed with the State of Maryland in 1997, with the project to be cost-shared 75 percent Federal and 25 percent non-Federal. The current project cost estimate is approximately $667 million.
$667 million for an island bird sanctuary. What a steal.
Yeah, my contractors give me accurate “estimates” as well.
Think of the birds!!!
BTW I wasn’t aware that the middle of the Chesapeake Bay was considered the northeast coast…ah geography, is it not taught in school?
That caught my attention too. Even the sat images clearly show it basically in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay. It only about 120 miles to the open ocean,
Isn’t this normally called “Make Work”?
I’m sure there are heaps of bridges and dams that need repairs with that money. Instead of an island for stupid birds.
Orchidcup is right. Pork Barrel Spending for sure.
Obviously you have no affection for birds.
How would you like to fly around all day and not find any sanctuaries?
Forget homeless people. Forget potholes and cracked dams and sagging bridges.
The birds need a sanctuary. In the middle of Chesapeake Bay. On an island.
It’s not the Army – It’s the Army Core of Engineers. An organization created solely to see how you can copy the best of communist organizational brilliance combined with capitalist principle of not being able to get a real job.
You people never wonder what they do with material dredged out of a shipping channel?
Normally the material is dumped in much deeper waters with currents that disperse the material over a wide area.
Or it is used to reform an island for birds and turtles at a nominal cost of $667 million, not factoring in inflation and cost overruns.
Quite a bit of it winds up in “spoils areas” of which this island is technically one. Sounds nicer to call it a bird sanctuary rather than the Chesapeake Bay Spoils Area.
I don’t see that much to get upset about here. Baltimore harbor is one of the major Atlantic ports, so the dredging will take place regardless. The only question is what to do with the mud that is dredged up in keeping the shipping channels open. What are the options? Dumping onshore would be highly unpopular, dumping it back in the bay is problematic (harming seafood areas). Or taking it out to the Atlantic ocean to dispose of it, some 150 miles away.
I’ll bet dumping it like they are was more cost-effective than ocean disposal (much less equipment due to a quicker turnaround ). And they get to throw a bone to the environmentalists by saying its wildlife habitat.
The problem is that the dredged mud, especially if it came from the Patapsco River (which is what Baltimore Harbor is), may be so highly contaminated, that it can’t be dumped anywhere except in another part of the Bay.
I’d bet that international law forbids dumping it in the Atlantic.
No. The DNR says it’s not toxic. Though it is so nitrogen rich, the bay grasses grow very fast on it. The main reason it’s not dumped out at sea. It costs more to go that far out. Poplar Is. itself is farther from the dredging sites, than Hart-Miller was. But they’re out of room there. That, and the rising costs of everything, makes it three times more expensive to dump at Poplar. But still cheaper than the Atlantic. If you can believe that.
It’s a multi-billion dollar project aimed at catching more blue crabs.
Yum, blue claw crabs. The season up here is approaching.
Night crabbing on the Great South Bay a favorite pastime.
Well, the fishing lobby is strong there, wouldn’t be surprised they bribed some politicians with several millions in order to waste that many taxpayer money.
Why has Obama been using a fraudulent Social Security number for the last 35 years?
The Army core of engineers is most likely dredging for shipping canals and need a location to dump the dirt. The pictures also suggest that the bay is filling up due to sedimentation. That is the more brown you see in the bay the shallower the water is unless its suspended sediment.
It does not appear that they are creating a storm surge barrier though I suppose I could be wrong about that.
They do need to prevent people from trying to live here because a hurricane could do major damage to this pile of mud.
Yea, using 123-45-6789 should have been a red flag!
Idiot.
Nope, it’s one reserved for residents of Connecticut, where Obama has never lived. He was in Hawaii at the time.
They have to dredge out the harbor and the channels so all those Chinese cargo ships, laden with Walmart good, can get in there. Now that we have the Chinese made mega-cranes to offload the Chinese made crapola, that didn’t provide any Americans a job making any of it. The way has to be deepened for the extra big ships to come in and bury us in environmentally unfriendly Chinese goods.
But all you hear or read, is how great an idea it is to restore a pimple of an island for the birds. 🙂
But I thought liberals were all in favor of the government being involved in “conservation?” Where’s the problem here?
Why is Obama using a fraudulent Social Security number for the last 35 years?
I remember back when this idea was first proposed to restore the Hart-Miller islands. Apparently, they ran out of room there, to dump any more dredge. So the Poplar island project was next. Even though it cost three times as much to haul it down there. It supposedly costs less that hauling it all the way out to sea.
http://tinyurl.com/crrmuau
If there may be any sinister propose to this thing at all. It would be to have a more isolated retreat for future presidents. The PDF states FDR and Truman use it. Until the club house burned in 1946. And Chinese officials visit there now, to see how we rebuild an island. So who knows what sort of secret summit place, away from the semi-curious press, this could become.
New location for the Hunger Games?
TIN FOIL HAT AREA
It’s a mini jobs program run by the military to keep the dollars flowing when there’s a lull in combat. The sheeple will also feel safer because, well because.
You ask too many questions and you might want to watch your back
Ha! The Army is building a giant upside-down penis. But, y’know, don’t ask, don’t tell.
Maybe it is all part of agenda 21.