Contact: Stephanie Roth
(202) 366-0660
FHWA 15-05c

Florida's use of computer technologies to include wildlife habitat needs in road project decision-making is among eight environmental programs across the country named by the Federal Highway Administration as a national model for protecting natural resources and enhancing local communities.

"These environmental success stories are characteristic of the Bush Administration's commitment to improving our transportation system while serving as good stewards of the world in which we live," said Acting Federal Highway Administrator J. Richard Capka.

FHWA annually spotlights a small group of "exemplary ecosystem initiatives" and posts information about them on its web site to encourage environmental protection, innovation and stewardship in highway and bridge projects. Capka praised the eight state departments of transportation that developed these model programs for protecting diverse biological resources and sustaining communities and regional economies.

In addition to the Florida program, FHWA this year recognized Arkansas' program to preserve more than 3,000 acres of wetlands; California's program to protect endangered species on Interstate 10 near Palm Springs; Kansas' program to preserve roadside prairies; Pennsylvania's ecology preservation program; South Carolina's protection of land near the Lewis Ocean Bay Heritage Preserve; Washington's preservation of wildlife habitat on the Interstate 90 Snoqualmie Pass East project; and Wyoming's program to include wildlife needs when designing highway projects.

More information on these environmental programs is available at www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/ecosystems/.

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