County calls for second salamander hearing

Santa Rosa County is seeking federal help to make sure the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service doesn’t block the much-anticipated Northwest Florida Bypass project to protect flatwoods salamanders.

“I think it’s particularly important that the public be given an opportunity to look at what is being designated as habitat, potential or real, and to help evaluate what our priorities are,”  County Commissioner Gordon Goodin said at Monday’s commission meeting. He learned Sunday that the service had scheduled a public hearing on the status and habitat of flatwoods salamanders last night at Pensacola Junior College. He said the hearing’s location was an unusual choice considering the affected habitats lay primarily in the Eglin Reservation in Okaloosa County and a small part of Santa Rosa County.

For more on thist story, see the Oct. 23 issue of the Navarre Press or subscribe online.