Subject: FW: SW BIODIVERSITY ALERT #144

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      \       SOUTHWEST BIODIVERSITY ALERT #144          /
       \                    8-11-98                     /
        \                                              /
         \ SOUTHWEST CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY  /
          \__________________________________________/
         
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.

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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