Vol. 1,
issue #58, 5 July 2001
Packery Channel area designated as bird habitat
The Corpus Christi Caller-Times reports that the federal government in the US has designated land around Packery Channel as part of a critical habitat for the piping plover bird, a threatened species, but says that the designation should not affect plansto dredge the channel.
The newspaper says that as a result of lawsuits in 1996 and 1997, the US Fish and Wildlife Service proposed designating about 7,000 acres in Nueces County as a habitat for the bird last year. The area was cut down to about 2,000 acres on the final plan released at the end of June.
The paper says a proposed resort on Padre Island depends on Packery Channel being reopened by dredging to provide boats with access to the Gulf of Mexico.
The dredged channel will cut through a section of the habitat designated for the birds, but government officials say this need not stop the project going ahead.
Dredging News Online
