Marc J. Dunkelman

And one of the routes that was under consideration was a route that was most direct, and it went through a swamp, and a swamp that had vernal pools.

I didn't know what a vernal pool, a vernal pool is a pool that only

is wet during the spring and they're important because you can turtles can lay eggs in the water during the spring and they are then protected from predators in the water and those turtles in this case the eastern box turtle is endangered and so those vernal pools are uh uh important ecologically

And, uh, the, the guy from the EPA is very worried about these vernal pools.

And if you were to run this train through, and, um, this became, I learned like a real issue of contingent is the EPA really wants to protect these vernal pools and these, and these turtles.

And like, I remember hearing the story for the first few times and people sort of rolling their eyes about the turtle guy and like, like, like really like, like these poor people in new Bedford don't have access to these great jobs and,

And like, it's going to be a much longer commute if you avoid this swamp.

And like, there's sort of like a real frustration that like the EPA, are you really going to like force these, like, like that's great housing for people in Boston who are starved for housing.

Like, like, like how much are these turtles really worth?

And then I began thinking about the guy from the EPA who's sitting there.

Like, I think he's an older guy probably took the job at the EPA and

maybe like not long after the power broker came out, like right in this age where like America has woken up to the degree to which the country has just totally destroyed much of the country's environment just to, you know, in every case we've chosen economic expediency over the environment, like just destroyed whole, you know, forests and deforest, just done terrible damage.

And his – he'd taken this job and like probably like had joined the EPA because he was going to speak up for these animals who couldn't speak up for themselves.

He was going to protect – Speak up for that turtle.

He was the turtle guy and he was proud of it, right?

Like he was going to stand up.

Moreover, like he said at that meeting, if he had said, all right, I'll let you run that train line through my turtle habitat, right?

he'd gone back to the EPA and told his boss, like, I can only imagine that like they would have, what do you, like our mission is to protect the, you can't just unilaterally.

And then if news got out that the EPA had given up on their turtles, they would have been subject to a lawsuit from the friends of the wilderness who were like, like there are a whole series of interventions that would have made it almost impossible for this turtle guy to actually come to some sort of collaborative solution with the EPA.

Massachusetts transportation folks who want to do it.