To protect the water bugs, highway officials agreed to restrict bridge work in the water to four months from Oct. 15 to Feb. 15. It may not be be best time of the year to do construction work, and it may prevent the overall project from being completed until 2006. Welcome to the world of Vice President Al Gore, a fervent supporter of the Clean Water Act. It's a place where merely human needs are no obstacle to stern environmental enforcement. Motorists can wait.
Bridges can wait.
The environment can't. Earth is hanging in the balance, to paraphrase the title of his book. The laws and regulations spawned by this outlook are quite familiar to developers, farmers and, more generally, residents of western U.S. states. For them it's part of the cost of doing business. But daily traffic jams at the Wilson Bridge are very, very burdensome.