While completion of the Cleburne County section of the Chief Ladiga Trail has been stalled by funding glitches and environmental hurdles, Jacksonville State University is lending hands toward seeing the 33-mile trail connect with Georgia’s Silver Comet Trail as soon as possible.Last month, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service told Cleburne County Engineer Russell Emrick that he would need to survey for endangered species before he could let the contract to pave a four-mile trail extension from the Calhoun County line to Cleburne County 230.
The county had already received $200,000 in federal money to do the work, along with the $50,000 match raised by the Chief Ladiga Trail Fund.
“I didn’t foresee any endangered species issue,” he said.
Emrick had hoped to see the paving work start by late summer or early fall. The surveys will set the project back six to eight months, he said.
Thanks to an enthusiastic JSU zoology professor and his students, the surveys won’t cost the county anything. The job has become their final project.
“We’re fortunate JSU is lending their resources to help us,” Emrick said. “It would be in the $5,000 to $10,000 range to have the survey done.”
Last week, Frank Romano, head of JSU’s biology department, and his students spent two mornings hunting for any signs that red cockaded woodpeckers or bald eagles lived along the trail.
The group of four set out driving down the trail – hanging their heads out Romano’s blue Ford van looking for any pine trees 150 feet on either side of the trail with trunks bigger than 10 inches in diameter.
Just a few yards from their starting point, the team jumped out of the van. Jessica Roberson and Kelly Hinds disappeared into dense foliage – off to look for any peckings or nest cavities all the way around the pines. Having been recently trained by the U.S. Forest Service, they knew that streaks of resin down the side of a tree were a good indicator that a red cockaded woodpecker had started pecking a hole. The resin could also mean a branch had fallen off, so they investigated all the way around each trunk, often with binoculars pointing skyward.
“You may want to put gloves on,” Romano called out to Roberson before she climbed up a ledge to get to a pine.
“I already have battle scars,” she called back, looking at her scratched hands.
This semester, the students have endured their share of bug bites, muscle aches and bruises as they surveyed and worked on habitat rehabilitation.
They say the lessons have been worth it.
Roberson, who plans to teach high school biology after graduation, prefers the hands-on learning to lectures.
“It seems like this class is more meaningful because it’s accomplishing something for the community,” she said. “It’s worth all the scratches and bumps.”
Romano feels the opportunity to do an actual survey that means something is far more valuable to the students than watching slides or even hands-on practice.
Romano said his students’ final will be compiling a report on the survey. Their findings will be submitted to the county and the Fish and Wildlife Service.
Conventional tests are not required for this class.
“They’ve been tested,” he said of his students. “Hiking up Dugger Mountain. Putting out sardine cans for black bear bait. Jumping over water moccasins.”
Because red cockaded woodpeckers prefer longleaf pine, and mostly shortleaf and loblolly border the trail, Emrick didn’t expect his surveyors to find anything.
Neither did they.
The chances of spotting a bald eagle nest were even slimmer. They prefer trees taller than anything along the Ladiga.
Later this summer, JSU students will also conduct a survey for four endangered mussels in creeks. Emrick said once he gets clearance from Fish and Wildlife, the Alabama Historical Commission and the U.S. Corps of Engineers he can let the contract for the paving work go.
A bridge also needs to be rehabilitated before this section of trail is useable, Emrick said. Third District Congressman Mike Rogers, R-Saks, secured $100,000 last year for the bridgework, which includes replacement of about 30 cross ties, adding a steal-beam railing and paving its floor.
The county can’t access that money now because a major reauthorization bill that controls transportation funding has yet to pass in Congress.
To finish the last five-mile section that would bring the trail into Georgia, the county will use a $487,000 federal grant. The county will have to come up with a 20 percent match to get that money.
