Design of Route 7 bypass allows for migration of certain species

David W. Harple/staff photographer This wildlife tunnel was added to the Route 7 expansion as a way for animals such as turtles to safely migrate through the highway area.

BROOKFIELD -- Drive north on Federal Road from the
Four Corners for about a mile and take a left onto Production Drive.

Pull up to the cul-de-sac at the end of the road and stand facing the mountain. You'll see workers from O&G Industries busy making progress on a stretch of the Route 7 bypass project.

Dust kicked up by the company's massive equipment will swirl before your eyes. The sound of diesel engines will resonate in your ears.

But turn your head to the right slightly and you'll see something out of place: a bridge-like archway under the highway where no water is coursing, and no road runs under.

What does run -- nay, walk, and slowly at that -- under it?


When the Department of Transportation received a permit for the bypass project from the Department of Environmental Protection in 2007, project engineer Daniel Foley said the DEP mandated a study of the migration paths of Eastern box turtles.

The turtles -- not an endangered species, but still of "special concern" -- migrate from the area west of the roadway eastward, and having a limited access highway there would impede their progress.

So officials studied the migration paths of the turtles -- gluing radio transmitters to about half of the 50 that were spotted during the process -- and mapped their movements and habitat.

The original designs for the project, Foley said, included plans for four tunnels that would allow the turtles and other species -- principally the hog-nosed snake -- to move in the area without being disturbed by the highway.

"As a result, we were supposed to go back to the DEP (after conducting the study) and tell them whether the four tunnels in the original design were placed in an appropriate place," Foley said last week.

They weren't.

"When they mapped all these turtles ... they were all clustered in one spot," Foley recalled. "Our consultant said it would be crazy to put in all the other tunnels if the turtles would not use them."

That's when the archway under the highway just west of Production Drive came into the picture.

"They merged three of the tunnels into one and made a bridge, a concrete arch structure," Foley said. "It's built, it's operational and it's done."

The fourth tunnel was put where it was originally planned, to the south of the "turtle tunnel," because that's where the hog-nosed snakes congregate, Foley said.

Foley's career at the DOT began about a quarter-century ago on a project to expand Route 9 in the area between New Britain and Hartford. That work entailed environmental concerns, too, as have nearly all of the projects he's supervised since then.

"As much as things change, they stay the same," he reflected.

Contact Ethan Fry


or at (203) 731-3477.