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Weekly Waste Watch: Week 26
Posted By Waste Watch :: November 17, 2009

Halloween or Stimulus? National Park Service to Buy a “Bat Gate” with Taxpayer Funds

  • The Nation Park Service is offering up to $25,000 in stimulus funds for a contract to build a “bat compatible gate” in the Great Basin National Park, Nevada. The proposed 8 foot by 8 foot gate will be built into the opening of an abandoned mine in the Lincoln Canyon.
  • Great Basin National Park, which already has a dozen similar gates throughout the park, constructs them to allow bats access, but keep humans out. The proposed expenditure begs the question of who the stimulus is going to benefit—humans or animals? Earlier this year, stimulus money was spent to help turtles cross a road in south Florida.
  • Under the House Republican Stimulus Alternative, taxpayer funds would not have been spent on bat-friendly gates. Instead, Republicans would have created twice as many jobs at half the cost. To learn how visit: http://republicanwhip.house.gov/Jobs/

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