Turtle Crossing in Warwick Grove

It pays to protect the environment. The Warwick Grove master plan in Warwick, N.Y., boasts a diversity of wildlife, including federally protected bog turtles that roam the marshy outskirts.

When the state of New York requested developer-builder LeylandAlliance protect the slow-moving but wide-ranging amphibians, the company called upon Michael Klemens, Ph.D. who cautioned that the turtles needed to cross underneath a 63-foot-wide roadway — and they needed natural moonlight to do it. Because of the natural moonlight, a conventional box culvert was ruled out. An alternative culvert runs beneath the roadway and uses steel grates every eight feet to act as skylights to guide the turtles along their way.

The turtle tunnel became a new standard design requested by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and the notoriety of this and other eco-measures won the firm an invitation to speak at an environmental conference. According to Lou Marquet, executive vice president for LeyandAlliance, "We want to go back to the days 100 years ago when builder-developers weren't seen as people who ruin the habitat, and take the money and run."