Subject: SW Biodiversity Alert #13
*** *** Southwest
Biodiversity Alert #12 *** ***
southwest center for
biological
diversity
swcbd@sw-center.org
***
***
****
*** ***
SOUTHWEST CENTER CHALLENGES OPERATON OF THREE
DAMS
ISABELLA DAM, CA. The Southwest Center has filed a 60-day
notice of
intent to sue Army Corps of Engingeers and the U.S. Fish
and
Wildlife Service over their plans to innundate Southwestern
willow
flycatcher nests on the Kern River by raising the level of
Isabella
Reservior. The Center also charges that Army Corps illegally
"took"
seven pairs of flycatchers in 1995 by filling the Reservior
without
an incidental take
permit.
Isabella Reservior is
supposed to be maintained at a moderate
level so that it has the capacity to
absorb flood waters which could
threaten downstream Bakersfield, CA.
Powerful corporate irrigators,
however, have managed to obtain "variances" in
13 of the past 20
years, allowing them to fill the Reservoir to dangerous
levels.
This year'S variance was granted at a press conference by
Jon
Garamandi, Assistant Secretary of Interior. Accompanied
by
Congressman Dooley, Garmanadi announced that the USFWS would not
issue
a jeopardy opinion and that the Reservior should be filled to
the brim
immediately. Dooley express his hope that as many
flycatcher nests as
possible be drowned.
ROOSEVELT DAM, AZ. Bureau of Reclamation has
spent over $4 million
rebuilding Arizona's first dam to increase capacity due
to high
sedimentation rates (cattle) and greed (corporate farmers).
Raising
the reservior will drown 30% of all Southwestern willow
flycatchers
in Arizona. Incredibly, BuRec issued a FONSI on the dam
enlargement.
The Southwest Center has filed suit under NEPA to force
a
supplemental analysis.
The
Southwestern willow flycatcher is down to 300 pairs.
"Extinction is
foreseeable" according to the U.S. Fish and Wildife
Service.
Approximately 20% of all known nests are scheduled to be
destroyed in 1996 by
Roosevelt Dam, Isabella Dam, and various
construction and development
projects.
BLUE RIDGE DAM, AZ. Phelps Dodge "accidently" built this
dam on
Forest Service land in the 1950s. Now Phelps Dodge, the
Forest
Service, and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission are
playing
hot potato over who is responsible for NEPA and ESA
compliance.
The Southwest Center has filed a 60-Day Notice of intent to sue
the
Forest Service under the
ESA.
The Blue Ridge Reservior is a
collection point, allowing Phelps
Dodge to pump water out of the Little
Colorado River Basin, over a
ridge, to their mining operation in the Gila
River Basin. In the
process they are dewatering habitat for the
endangered Little
Colorado
spinedace.
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