Fuzzy Stimuli

Repairs for rural bridges, an under-highway safe crossing for turtles and efforts to protect the sage grouse population are among 100 projects a Republican senator pointed to Monday as questionable federal stimulus spending.
The list by Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, includes projects others would identify as ideal for creating jobs and benefiting generations of Americans: skateboard parks, streetscapes, upgrades of park facilities, bike trails and parking garages.
Coburn's list is partially a collection of news stories that questioned local projects to be funded under President Barack Obama's economic recovery program.

• $3.4 million Florida Department of Transportation project for an "eco-passage" - an underground wildlife road crossing for turtles and other wildlife in Lake Jackson, Fla., along U.S. 27.
• Repair of 37 rural bridges in Wisconsin that average little more than 500 vehicles apiece each day - with one carrying no more than 10 cars a day.
• A Bureau of Land Management project to study the impact wind farms have on the sage grouse population in Oregon. The proposal calls for hiring people to tag sage grouse in areas where wind farms may be built, to help determine where turbines could be located.
• $1.5 million in stimulus money for a $5 million new wastewater treatment plant in Perkins, Okla., his home state. Coburn said the stimulus money came with strings that will increase the costs. With a new total cost of $7.2 million, the city will be forced to borrow money and, as a result, utility taxes have increased by 60 percent this year, the senator said.
• Road signs costing $300 each, being placed at construction sites to alert motorists that the project is being paid for by the stimulus money.
  

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