Fairy Tale Creature in the Path of the Purple Line

Purple Line transit project opponents sue to protect tiny species they can’t even find

Kenk's Amphipod

American University professor David Culver spent a week in April hunting through damp spots in the forest floor in Montgomery County in hope of finding rare varieties of tiny, shrimp-like creatures called amphipods.

He didn’t find any. Not a one.

This might have been a major setback for the folks who hired the environmental scientist. They’re paying Culver thousands of dollars with the goal of blocking plans for the light-rail Purple Line in suburban Maryland on grounds that it threatens the critters with extinction.

Hay's Spring Amphipod

But they can’t make their case if the miniature crustaceans aren’t there to protect.

So, did Culver’s failure stop opponents from suing to thwart the project under the Endangered Species Act?

No way! They went right ahead and filed a federal civil complaint on Tuesday.

It’s all just a legal gimmick, of course.

Having failed to kill or reroute the Purple Line despite years of agitation, a small but resolute band of critics is exploiting a pair of amphipod species in what could be the final, serious bid to disrupt the transit project.

I have no specific love for the Hay's Spring or Kenk's Ampipod (who I blogged about in this regard back in December), or the Purple Line of the Metro, but I am amused that this fight sets two members of the environmental coalition at war. The BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything) crowd is opposed by the likes of the Sierra Club, who would rather see people confined in cattle cars on the Metro than running free on the Beltway:

“Any major project . . . is going to have some negatives,” David Sears, vice chairman of the Sierra Club in Montgomery County, said. “It’s our considered opinion that the net plus is considerable, and the Purple Line is the way we want to go.”

You'd think that after all the fuss they made over the Snail Darter, this might be a bit embarrassing.

As for the importance of the amphipods?

“I do not think that, say, in Rock Creek they’re important in the ecosystem,” said Culver, a leading expert on amphipod habitat.

There you have it.