Chris Lee has given an update on his transition to Capitol Hill, including some appointments:

In one more bit of news, I announced the appointments of both my Chief of Staff and District Director. Brian Schubert will serve as Chief of Staff in my Washington office and my Campaign Manager, Nick Langworthy, will serve as my District Director. I am putting together a strong team whose number one priority will be to provide exemplary constituent services and help me push a strong agenda for Western New York in Congress.

Congrats to Brian and Nick!

With just over a month before being sworn in, Lee is keeping busy: 

This has been an exciting month and although I have not been sworn in yet, I have wasted no time in continuing to travel the district and hear your ideas so I can bring them to Washington. I was pleased to see JP Morgan Chase announce that they will keep open the former-Washington Mutual facility in Albion. This preserves more than 800 jobs for Western New Yorkers. Last week, I had the chance to tour the call center and visit with the workers there. I told them I would do everything I could as their representative in Washington to preserve and create good-paying jobs in our area. In addition, earlier this month I attended a news conference at the Peace Bridge to unveil new technology designed to protect our border.

Lee will be sworn in on January 6, 2009.

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Neighborhood near Peace Bridge designated as ‘at-risk’ historically

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Buffalo’s premier liberal rag, Artvoice, asks the question, “Who shrank the Peace Bridge?” It’s a question we all know the answer to: environmentalists.

“In Melbourne Florida,” notes one of the letters, “a very tall bridge presented a fatal obstacle to bird flight, and studies from 1989 to 1992 found 11 Brown Pelicans, 84 Royal Terns, 2 Sandwich Terns and 2 Black Skimmers were hit and killed by vehicles on the Bridge. Undoubtedly birds hit the bridge as well, however these would not have been recoverable…The Common Terns, Double-crested Cormorants, Black-crowned Night Herons, and Great-Blue Herons could easily have the same problems with bridge height that the birds encountered with the bridge in Melbourne, Florida.”

But by their own admission there is no evidence at all of bridge height being an issue in Melbourne, Florida. All the dead birds, in that area with vastly more bird traffic than Buffalo, were road kill—birds that landed on the bridge and were walking around when a car or truck came along. That could happen with a bridge of any height, or just a road near a waterway. The letter speculated that birds killed by collision with the bridge fell into the water, so no one ever knew about them. How can the PBA possibly respond to that?

All of the reports refer to Menn’s bridge as 590 feet, as if it were 590 feet high from shore to shore. But it’s only 590 feet high at the top of the pylons. Between the pylons, it’s not much higher than the current bridge. Watch birds fly over any cable stay bridge: Some go over the pylons, some fly between them. If 590 feet is an issue (none of the birds mentioned is incapable of flying above 590 feet), why wouldn’t the birds fly between the pylons, as they do everywhere else? (If the 590-foot rule obtained, we wouldn’t have the Golden Gate Bridge, Verrazano-Narrows Bridge or George Washington Bridge, all of which are taller and are in busier bird routes.)

Spend an afternoon searching Google for reports of birds flying into the wires of cable-stay bridges and you’ll come up empty. When Hong Kong wanted to build a new bridge, they did a search of 1,500 bridge projects and found nothing. None of the dozens of cable-stay bridges built in the US in recent years have resulted in any significant bird homicides.

What amazes me is why it took the potential scrapping of Christian Menn’s design for so many people, particularly those on the left, to suddenly wake up to the fact that environmental concerns are sometimes hogwash.

So many have accepted global warming as fact, without giving any consideration to scientific evidence that either contradicts that global warming is occuring, or that while climate change is occuring that it is not caused by man. No, when it comes that issue, the environmentalists aren’t challenged as they have been with this Peace Bridge nonsense.

The challenging of the environmentalists over the Peace Bridge design should have people asking whether they’ve been duped by them before. True enough, environmentalists and their Democrat minions in Congress have prevented drilling in ANWR and the building of new refineries in the United States. The end result? Gas prices nearing $4.00/gallon. There’s no way to calculate what kind of negative impact alleged environmental concerns (especial ones that result in governmental regulations of all kinds) have on our economy.

If Artvoice can question the environmentalists assessment of the Menn Peace Bridge design, perhaps they (and others) can take the next step and start to question other potentially bogus claims they make.

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Christian Menn’s winning design for the new Peace Bridge appears to be doomed after environmentalists have conjured up fears of dangers to birds. The jury that selected the design back in 2005 is less than thrilled with the news.

“It’s ridiculous to think the Niagara River is the one river in all the world where birds would be befuddled by a cable-stayed bridge,” said Lawlor F. Quinlan III, a Buffalo lawyer.

“I’m so disappointed I could scream,” added Martha Bliss, another juror. “There are huge, tall bridges all over the world. I don’t know why it’s not possible in Buffalo.”

The potential risk to birds arose during the 32-member binational jury’s deliberations more than two years ago –but no expert or consultant warned them the proposed bridge’s height could be a deal-breaker, the jurors said.

Instead, consultants said steps could be taken to mitigate potential problems with migratory birds along the Niagara River corridor.

“We were told by the consultants and the Peace Bridge Authority that all the bridges that the jury reviewed could be built,” said Robert G. Shibley, a University at Buffalo professor of architecture and planning who served as cochairman of the jury.

Will environmentalists kill Menn’s bridge design for good? The concern over birds is ludicrous, and there’s no evidence that the concerns over dangers to birds is based on reality. Menn’s design is similar to an earlier bridge he designed: the Zakim Bridge in Boston, MA. As a former Boston resident, I can tell you that the bridge has yet to cause any bird fatalities. So, unless the birds in Boston are a significantly smarter than the the birds in Western New York, there really is no reason to scrap Menn’s design.

Despite the so-called environment concerns, Menn’s design has an ally in Senator Chuck Schumer:

Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., has said he’s not willing to give up on the cable-stayed design.

“This signature bridge was far and away the consensus choice as it provided a stunning architectural monument to serve as the gateway between Canada and the United States,” Schumer said in a letter to the secretaries of interior and transportation. Others hope Schumer and the rest of Western New York’s c ongressional delegation will continue that fight.

“To our knowledge, the throwing out of Menn’s design based on birds is without precedent,” said Patrick McNichol, a spokesman for the New Millennium Group of Western New York, which has championed a new signature Peace Bridge since 1999.

“No evidence has been provided to support such a drastic change,” McNichol said.

The organization called the decision to abandon the cable-stayed design “unacceptable” and said it “undermines what little confidence the public had in the process.”

I have no idea what the ultimate fate of Menn’s design is, but I am sure the fight will go on for quite a while.

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New Peace Bridge design scuttled because of danger to birds

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