"The developers of New Town will pay more than $21,000 in civil fines for... clearing a little under a quarter of an acre of protected land surrounding a rare colony of endangered orchid...
The order was issued after New Town's environmental consultants contacted DEQ [Department of Environmental Quality] last October to alert them that work crews had cleared, grubbed and graded land set aside for preservation in the developer's permit to build near wetlands and streams. The company blamed the foul-up on inaccurately placed flags. New Town, a 300-acre mixed-used development... has been dogged by the endangered plant since late 2006, when a colony was discovered on the site's southeastern edge. James City County's Planning Commission ultimately agreed to let the developer build a narrower-than-normal buffer... The species of pogonia is listed on the U.S. government's register of endangered plant species and on Virginia's register of threatened plant species. In addition to encroaching on the pogonia preserve's buffer zone, New Town inadvertently [!???!] cleared roughly .05 acres of wetlands buffer zone." URL : http://www.dailypress.com/news/local/williamsburg/dp-local_newtown_0624jun24,0,5635322.story?track=rss ***************** Regards, VB _______________________________________________ the OrchidGuide Digest (OGD) [email protected] http://orchidguide.com/mailman/listinfo/orchids_orchidguide.com
