Subject: SW BIODIVERSITY ALERT
#101
******* SOUTHWEST BIODIVERSITY ALERT
#101 ***********
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11/7/97
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* SOUTHWEST CENTER
FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY
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1. SOUTHWEST CENTER AND
BARRIO SAN ANTONIO TO SUE ARMY
CORPS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
AND WILDLIFE VIOLATIONS
2. JUDGE ORDERS U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE TO
RELEASE
GAG ORDER TO SOUTHWEST CENTER
3. CLINTON VETOES
$10 MILLION FOR MOUNT GRAHAM TELESCOPES
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SOUTHWEST CENTER AND BARRIO SAN
ANTONIO TO SUE ARMY CORPS
FOR ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE AND WILDLIFE
VIOLATIONS
The Southwest Center and Barrio San Antonio residents
Anna
Acuna and Margaretta Rosenberg Ortiz threatened to sue the
U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers over a proposal to take over
open space in Barrio San
Antonio for use as detention basin
to control flooding in downtown Tucson.
Though one of the
basins would be 500 feet from a state superfund site,
the
Corps Environmental Impact Statement does not even mention it.
The
detention basins would destroy Arroyo Chico, one the
last urban wildlife
corridors in downtown Tucson. Maria
Cadaxa, vice president of the Barrio
Association read a
statement concluding "We believe the natural state of
the
Arroyo Chico to be an irreplaceable asset in the inner
city ecology of
Tucson. Not only is it home to a variety
of desert flora and fauna, it is the
repository of traditions
and memories that stretch back generations. To
change the
Arroyo Chico threatens the body and spirit of our
barrio."
The Center and the Barrio allege that the project
violates
the National Environmental Policy Act for ignoring the
superfund
site and a presidential order on Environmental
justice in minority and
low
income populations.
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_____ _____ _____
JUDGE
ORDERS U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE TO TURN OVER
GAG ORDER TO SOUTHWEST
CENTER
A federal judge has found the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
in
violation of the Freedom of Information Act for refusing
to turn over an
administrative gag order prohibiting biologist
in the Arizona and New Mexico
from talking to "potential
Litigants" (i.e. the Southwest Center). The agency
claimed it
did not have the provide the order under the Freedom
of
Information Act because it was a "draft." The Court, however,
found
that the order must be released, draft or not, because it
is in
effect.
The gag order was an attempt to squelch Fish and Wildlife
Service
biologists and prevent the public from obtain information
about
federal management of endangered species.
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CLINTON VETOES $10 MILLION FOR MOUNT
GRAHAM TELESCOPES
On November 1, 1997, President Clinton used the line-item
veto
to remove $10 million from the VA-HUD bill earmarked for
the
University of Arizona's Mt. Graham telescope project.
The
appropriation was stealthily placed on the unrelated by
Arizona
congressman Jim Kolbe.
Mt. Graham is home to the endangered
Mt. Graham red squirrel
and is sacred to the San Carlos Apache people.
Environmentalists,
Native Americans, and religious rights groups have fought
the
telescope project for ten years. Kolbe has spearheaded two
previous
riders exempting the telescope project from
environmental laws.
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