Cross-Base Highway and the oak-woodland prairie
The Cross-Base Highway proposed near Tacoma, Washington, threatens rare oak-woodland prairie and the rare wildlife which lives there.
A Cross-Base Highway proposed between Fort Lewis and McChord Air Force Base in Pierce County threatens to destroy a rare remaining Washington prairie and the many native prairie plants and animals that live there.
If built, the highway project, on hold for now largely because of its huge price tag ($400 million dollars), would bisect one of the last remaining oak prairie woodlands in western Washington and destroy 162 acres of unique old-growth oak woodlands.
That doesn't sound like much, unless you are a prairie wildlife. Precious little left of this rare habitat type exists today in all of Washington.
The Puget Sound's lowland oak-woodland prairies once covered more than 150,000 acres. Today, agriculture, development, and invasive species have shrunk Washington's native prairie habitat to just 3 percent.
Answers/questions about the Cross-Base Highway. Read more about South-Sound Prairies
Construction of the proposed highway endangers habitat for nineteen state and federal listed bird species and four prairie dependent species including streaked horned lark, Taylor’s checkerspot butterfly, Mazama pocket gopher, and water howellia as well as the at-risk western gray squirrel.
Seen a gray squirrel lately? Those are eastern grays. Very few of our western gray squirrels remain, that's because they need prairie habitats.
The Cross-Base Highway's poor design and lack of mitigation is forcing equestrian-related businesses in Lakewood along the route to close. These businesses provide 25 local jobs and have stables for more than 200 horses, and more importantly are of importance to the character of the area. Also along the route is the low income housing for Pierce County that is receiving at some points a 10-foot buffer from the roadway to their property lines.
A report prepared by the Washington State Legislature's Joint Committee on Veterans and Military Affairs in 2004, entitled "Military Bases in Our Communities," identified the concern that putting a cross-base highway along the southern end of the McChord Air Force base will make it difficult to utilize the entire base and may jeopardize the future of the base.
Dinosaur of a project
In a 2003 public poll on regional transportation planning and projects contracted by the Regional Transportation Investment District, the Cross-Base Highway ranked last of all proposed Pierce County projects, with only 10% of those polled stating it was a project of importance to the region.
The Cross-Base Highway does not address our state’s highest priorities of transportation safety and maintenance issues, and it will not relieve ongoing traffic congestion. The roadway would actually increase travel distances for drivers. In the words of the environmental impact statement for the project, “Overall, people would travel a little farther to use the new Cross-Base Highway project to avoid other congested highways and roads; this would increase miles driven” (Cross-Base Highway FEIS, p. 4-201).”
