Subject: FW: SW BIODIVERSITY ALERT #128

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      \       SOUTHWEST BIODIVERSITY ALERT #128          /
       \                    4-27-98                     /
        \                                              /
         \ SOUTHWEST CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY  /
          \__________________________________________/
         
1. JUDGE REJECTS CATTLE INDUSTRY EFFORT TO SCUTTLE GRAZING SETTLEMENT-
   250 MILES OF STREAMS SAFE...FOR NOW

2. EDITORIAL: LANDMARK GRAZING SETTLEMENT NECESSARY TO PROTECT LIFEBLOOD
   OF SOUTHWESTERN FORESTS

3. URBAN SPRAWL COSTS PIMA COUNTY $1.1 BILLION, TUCSON $2 BILLION

4. PYGMY OWL MAKES ROCK AND ROLL HISTORY, TRIAL SET FOR 4-29-98

     *****     *****     *****     *****

JUDGE REJECTS CATTLE INDUSTRY EFFORT TO SCUTTLE GRAZING SETTLEMENT-
250 MILES OF STREAMS SAFE...FOR NOW
On 4-18-98, a federal judge refused to grant the livestock industry a
temporary restraining order stopping a settlement agreement by the
Southwest Center, Forest Guardians, and the U.S. Forest Service. The
agreement temporarily bans cattle from about 250 miles of rivers on
57 grazing allotments. Because of political momentum and Endangered
Species Act pressures, cattle will likely be kept off the rivers
permanently.

The judge's denial affirms the U.S. Magistrates opinion which states:

  "As a starting point, the importance of riverbed areas to wildlife in
  the desert Southwest cannot be overstated. Riparian areas serve as
  critical habitat for numerous threatened and endangered species...The
  ESA flatly requires that the USFS ensure that its programs and permits
  do not jeopardize the survival or critical habitat of any listed species
  ...(The Forest Service) argues that granting the TRO would enjoin the
  USFS from performing actions which it feels are required under the ESA
  ...The Court acknowledges that some permitees will suffer significant
  economic hardships, but those hardships do not outweigh the sweeping,
  definitive scope of the ESA. Additionally, if the USFS does not follow
  through on its plans to exclude grazing on a shortened time line in order
  to protect listed species, and a violation of the ESA results, the harm
  could truly be irremediable."
     _________________________________

EDITORIAL: LANDMARK GRAZING SETTLEMENT NECESSARY TO PROTECT LIFEBLOOD OF
SOUTHWESTERN FORESTS
The normally conservative editorial board of the Albuquerque Journal wrote
an editorial on 2-22-98 praising a recent court settlement temporarily
banning cattle from about 250 miles of streams on 57 grazing allotments
in the Gila Headwaters Ecosystem. Calling the settlement a "landmark
agreement" to save "the very lifeblood of New Mexico's southwestern
desert forests," the Journal editors urged the ranching industry to accept
the "bitter pill." The full editorial is printed below:

Forest Agency Must Ride Herd on Grazing

        It is a bitter pill for ranchers to swallow, and some may quit the
business rather than take it.
        But it's a bitter prescription that must be taken in order to
revitalize and restore streamside areas, whose health directly affects
rivers and streams - the very lifeblood of New Mexico's southwestern desert
forests.  The remedy is a landmark agreement that, for the first time in
more than a century, will keep cattle out of stream beds in the Gila and
Apache-Sitgreaves national forests of New Mexico and southeastern Arizona.
Without it, the prognosis for rivers, fish and wildlife is not very good.
        The agreement was signed by the U.S. Forest Service, settling
combined lawsuits filed last year by two environmental groups, the Santa
Fe-based Forest Guardians and Tucson-based Southwest Center for Biological
Diversity.  Despite objections by ranchers,a federal judge has refused to
block the agreement.
        The stated purpose of the lawsuits and the agreement is to get
cattle off 57 grazing allotments until the Forest service conducts studies
to see whether grazing is harming endangered fish, birds, animals and rare
plants.  But the fact that species are becoming endangered is a gauge of
the extent of the damage to riparian areas themselves.
        The Forest Service has estimated that just 16 percent of its
Southwestern riparian areas are up to its own standards; 27 percent fail to
meet them and are not improving.  The rest fail to meet them, but are
improving.
        Important to wildlife, cattle, and most critical, clean water
supplies, riparian areas are in poor shape because of grazing, water
diversion, the invasion of weed species like salt cedar and urban
development.  Cattle hurt stream banks by eating young trees, fouling
water, overgrazing, and otherwise causing erosion.
        On forest grazing allotments, stream beds are often dried out,
hoof-marked, eroded mud flats.  But a number of streamside ecology projects
started by the Bureau of Land management in 1991, have demonstrated how
dramatically rivers can rebound. Once sinking in mud, the Rio Senorito, a
tributary of the Rio Puerco once considered one of the most degraded
riparian areas in the state, flows clear over grass after cattle removal.
Grassy banks are more hospitable to a wider variety of plants, bugs, birds,
fish and wildlife. Because streams move more slowly along grassy banks, the
water table rises, additional plants grow and sediment settles.  This not
only improves wildlife conditions, but recharges aquifers.
        The cost to affected ranchers of removing cattle from streamside
areas cannot be underestimated.  They will be forced to fence to keep
cattle out of the streams - a major financial and physical undertaking- and
must set up alternative water sources, like stock tanks and water
pipelines. Those in wilderness areas have it even tougher; they must use
earthen stock tanks but can't use any mechanized tools to create them. Many
ranchers in or out of wilderness areas will cut their herds substantially
or altogether.
        Caren Cowan, director of the New Mexico Cattle Growers Association,
said the agreement marks a shift in attitude on the part of the Forest
Service, upon whom ranchers depend for grazing leases.  However, agency
figures show that the number of cattle permitted on the state's national
forests has been dropping for decades - from about 180,000 in 1919 to about
104,500 in 19987 to about 92,000 in 1997.
        New Mexico ranchers have long been proud of the fact that family
cattle ranching has been a highly sustainable and renewable resource-based
industry for more than 500 years.
        But the sustainability of ranching is dependent on the
sustainability of the land and its life-giving streams and rivers.
ecologically sensitive management of livestock grazing on public lands is
necessary to make sure forest lands and rivers are healthy enough to be
used and enjoyed in the future by all members of the public, including
ranchers.
     _________________________________

URBAN SPRAWL COSTS PIMA COUNTY $1.1 BILLION, TUCSON $2 BILLION
According to County Administrator, Chuck Huckelberry, Pima County is
losing seven acres a day, and seven square miles of desert a year to
urban sprawl. The county will have to shell out $1.1 billion in the next
ten years to provide infrastructure for new developments. The City of
Tucson will have to spend $2 billion on transportation projects and
repairs to simply maintain the existing population. The Center for Law in
the Public Interest and the Sierra Club are pushing a ballot measure to
establish limits to urban sprawl and to make developers, rather than
tax payers, shoulder the cost of sprawl related infrastructure.
     ___________________________________

PYGMY OWL MAKES ROCK AND ROLL HISTORY, TRIAL SET FOR 4-29-98
The endangered Cactus ferruginous pygmy owl, bane of Tucson basin
developers, has made it onto a CD. The Town of Tortolita, which
favors strictly controling growth to save the Sonoran Desert, has adopted
the pygmy owl as its town mascot. To raise money, the town is selling a
CD entitled "We Are the Town of Torotolita" with the lyrics:

  "We are the town of Tortolita
   We won's surrender one more acre of land
   We've got the right...and we're going to fight
   Don't cross our line in the sand
   Hear...the song of the mourning dove
   Hear the coyote howl
   We're making the case...for some wide open space
   We'll share a home with the pymy owl."

On 4-29-98, Defenders of Wildlife and the Southwest Center will present
its case against the Amphi School District which plans to build a high
school in an occupied pygmy owl territory over the objections of the
town of Tortolita and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. We won a
temporary restraining order last month barring further construction
until the case is heard. The case is being argued by John Fritschie of
Defenders of Wildlife and Eric Glitzenstein of Meyers & Glitzenstein.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Kieran Suckling                               ksuckling@sw-center.org
Executive Director                            520.623.5252 phone
Southwest Center for Biological Diversity     520.623.9797 fax
http://www.sw-center.org                      pob 710, tucson, az 85702-710