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\ SOUTHWEST BIODIVERSITY ALERT
#144
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8-11-98
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\ SOUTHWEST CENTER FOR
BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY
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1.
REDMOND INTRODUCES "FOREST HEALTH" BILL TO SUBSIDIZE EVEN MORE
LOGGING ON NEW MEXICO NATIONAL FORESTS
2. CHENOWETH, YOUNG AND REDMOND
REVIVE McCARTHYISM TACTICS TO
INTIMIDATE FOREST SERVICE AND
ENVIROS IN SOUTHWEST
3. COURT REFUSES TO BACK DOWN ON ORDER FORCING
LISTING OF 44
CALIFORNIA SPECIES AS ENDANGERED
4.
EDITORIAL: SCHOOL DISTRICT SHOULD COMPROMISE WITH ENVIROS,
NOT
HARM ENDANGERED PYGMY OWL
***** *****
***** *****
REDMOND INTRODUCES "FOREST HEALTH"
BILL TO SUBSIDIZE EVEN MORE
LOGGING ON NEW MEXICO NATIONAL FORESTS
On
7-14-98, Bill Redmond (R-NM) introduced the "New Mexico
Forest Health and
Fire Prevention Act of 1998" to
subsidize the timber industry $12 million to
log New Mexico's
National Forests. The bill establishes a "Forest Health
and
Fire Prevention Fund" to pay Forest Service expenses to
designate and
log specific "recovery areas." In establishing
the areas, the agency would be
required to "consider and make
paramount the economic benefits to be provided
to local
communities." Proceeds from logging, thinning, salvaging,
and
"santizing" these forests would go back into the fund to
ensure a
permanent cycle of subsidized logging. The project
would last from 2000 to
2005.
_________________________
CHENOWETH,
YOUNG AND REDMOND REVIVE McCARTHYISM TACTICS TO
INTIMIDATE FOREST SERVICE AND
ENVIROS IN SOUTHWEST
In the wake of environmental victories scaling back
logging and
grazing in the Southwest, Don Young (R-AK), Helen
Chenoweth
(R-ID) and Bill Redmond (R-NM) are trying to intimidate
the
Forest Service and environmentalists with congressional hearings
and
charges of collusion.
In a 7-28-98 letter, Young demanded that the
Regional Forester
provide the names of all Forest Service employees who
are
members of, or have contributed money to the Southwest Center,
Forest
Guardians, the Sierra Club or The Wilderness Society. He
also demanded the
names of Forest Service employees who contacted
the Southwest Center or
Forest Guardians prior to settlement
negotiations which resulted in cattle
being banned from over 250
miles of rivers in Arizona and New
Mexico.
Chenoweth and Redmond have scheduled a field hearing of
the
House Committee on Resources to investigate the impact of
protections
for the Mexican spotted owl on rural northern New
Mexico communities. Though
the Southwest Center and Forest
Guardians have been asked to make
presentations at the 8-15-98
hearing, Redmond and Chenoweth have stacked the
hearing with
loggers and ranchers.
___________________________
COURT REFUSES TO BACK DOWN ON ORDER FORCING
LISTING OF 44
CALIFORNIA SPECIES AS ENDANGERED
On 7-21-98, Federal Judge
Judith Keep denied a request by the
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to
reconsider her 5-5-98 ruling
forcing theagency to make final listing
decisions on the fate of
44 imperiled species. The Southwest Center filed
suit after the
agency refused to list the species as endangered although
they
continue to decline toward extinction.
In denying the agency's
motion, Keep warned that "the court is
concerned that defendants are using
procedural requirements and
fiscal impediments to circumvent the
law...Congress set very
explicit timetables in the statute, presumably to
ensure there
would not be administrative foot dragging in handling
time
sensitive issues involved in evaluating and protecting
endangered
species."
________________________________
EDITORIAL: SCHOOL DISTRICT SHOULD
COMPROMISE WITH ENVIROS, NOT
HARM ENDANGERED PYGMY OWL
Tucson Citizen,
Thursday, July 30, 1998
After months of insisting that no other
location would do,
Amphitheater school officials are looking at other
possible sites
for a new high school.
The half-hearted effort
reflects a fear that they may have no
choice. But the district has had
choices all along, and the time
to give serious consideration to those
choices is long overdue.
School officials still favor the 70-acre site
at North Shannon
Road and West Naranja Drive originally purchased for the new
high
school. But environmentalists sued to stop construction
there
because they view it as prime habitat for endangered owls.
Amphi officials want to be prepared in case an appeals court
rules against
them.
It's encouraging to see the school district take even an
itsy,
bitsy step in a possible new direction - given it's
previous
stubborn refusal to look at other options.
Amphi is taking
a second look at 10 sites considered before the
Shannon-Naranja property was
purchased.
It also has looked at 16 sites proposed by environmental
groups
and determined that a few would be suitable for a new
school.
If school officials had been more wiling to work
with
environmentalists all along, they might have avoided costly
court
battles and school construction delays.
Instead, the district
took the arrogant position that it had every
right to build on it's chosen
site, and no one was going to stand in
its way without a legal
order.
If the resulting quagmire teaches the school board a few
lessons in
the art of compromise, that would be consolation.
There's no reason the district can't find a school site to meet
students'
needs without posing a possible threat to the endangered
owls.
Yes,
the district stands to lose a lot of money. And yes, that
won't sell
well with plenty of district residents. If Amphi officials
had been
more open-minded from the start, they could have avoided
that
predicament.
Instead of finding a new site only if forced, school
officials
should do so in the art of
compromise.
_____________________________________________________________________________
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