************* CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY
*************
http://www.sw-center.org
ALERT #197 8-5-99
§ ENDANGERED SPECIES ACTION ALERT: SECRETARY
BABBITT
TRYING TO SUBVERT ESA
§ APPEAL VICTORY: CORDUROY
GRAZING ALLOTMENT, GILA
NATIONAL FOREST
§ CATTLE PRIORITIZED
OVER ONLY MEXICAN WOLF PACK
WITH WILD BORN PUPS
§ HELP RAISE
FUNDS TO CONTINUE PROTECTION OF
WILDLIFE AND WILD PLACES
§ TEAR
DOWN THE FOSSIL CREEK DAM
ENDANGERED SPECIES ACTION ALERT: SECRETARY
BABBITT
TRYING TO SUBVERT ESA--CALL TODAY!
Secretary of the Interior
Bruce Babbitt has asked
Senator Slade Gorton (R-WA) to offer a rider
to
the Interior Appropriations bill to cut funding
for designating
critical habitat for endangered
species to a paltry $1 million. Secretary
Babbitt
has asked Congress to cut the budget, so he can
use that as an
excuse for not properly
implementing the Endangered Species
Act.
Please Help!
Call George Frampton, director of the
White
House's Council of Environmental Quality to
express your outrage
(202-456-6224). Secretary
Babbitt should be an advocate, not an enemy,
of
endangered species protection. Tell them to stop
undermining the ESA!!
The President should
strongly oppose the Gorton rider to cut
ESA
funding.
Call your Senators (202-224-3121) and tell them
to
oppose the Gorton rider to cut ESA funding. The
Senate will possibly
vote on the Interior
Appropriations bill this week. That's when
Gorton
will likely introduce this
amendment.
______________________
APPEAL VICTORY: CORDUROY GRAZING
ALLOTMENT, GILA
NATIONAL FOREST
In response to an appeal by the
Center, the Gila
National Forest was ordered to withdraw a decision
that
authorized grazing on the Corduroy Allotment
due to violations of the Forest
Management Plan.
The decision purported to provide protection
and
improvement of upland range and riparian
conditions required by the
FMP. The Center pointed
out that although the utilization levels
were
within the required range they would not lead to
any improvements,
rather to a continued
degradation of the upland and riparian
habitat.
According to the appeal decision the Gila NF must
conduct
another analysis which will clearly
identify use levels which will "improve
range and
riparian conditions." But as recently pointed out
in a report by
range ecologist Dr. Joy Belsky "an
extensive search did not locate
peer-reviewed,
empirical papers reporting a positive impact of
cattle on
riparian areas when those areas were
compared to ungrazed
controls..."
The implication made here is that no level of
grazing
provides a ecological benefit. Rather,
while certain use levels, or
rotational schemes,
may reduce abuse, they can not provide a
positive
ecological effect. Although the Gila NF will be
looking to find
the appropriate level of abuse as
outlined in their FMP, unless cattle are
removed
there will be no ecological
benefit.
_____________________
CATTLE PRIORITIZED OVER ONLY MEXICAN
WOLF PACK
WITH WILD BORN PUPS
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has
captured a
male wolf and yearling from the Pipestem Pack of
Mexican gray
wolves, and is trying to capture the
female and pups, because the pack may
have killed
two cows on the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest.
The
unknown number of pups have not previously had
contact with humans, and are
the only wild born
Mexican wolf pups known. A pup born after last
year's
wolf release disappeared after its parents
were killed.
The
reintroduction plan for the Mexican wolf
allows Fish and Wildlife to relocate
released
wolves to any other part of the recovery area
potentially
including the wolves' best habitat in
the Gila National Forest. But
Department of
Interior officials in Washington are blocking re-
releasing
the Pipestem Pack to the Gila because of
opposition from New Mexico ranchers.
As a result,
the wolves will be kept in cages indefinitely.
Please
call Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt today
and demand that the incarcerated
members of the
Pipestem Pack of Mexican wolves be released back
to their
homes, that capture attempts cease for
those pack members still free, and
that approval
be granted to release wolves directly in the Gila
National
Forest.
Bruce Babbitt, Secretary of the Interior
(202)
208-7351.
______________________
HELP RAISE FUNDS TO CONTINUE
PROTECTION OF
WILDLIFE AND WILD PLACES
If you're a customer of Working
Assets Long
Distance Company you can help raise funds for
conservation.
Each year Working Assets gives away
several million dollars to various groups
working
for environmental and social justice. It's not too
late to
nominate the Center for Biological
Diversity to receive funding in the year
2000 from
Working Assets.
To nominate the Center mail your nomination
by
August 31, 1999. Send a letter explaining why the
Center for Biological
Diversity deserves funding,
also include information regarding our work as
it
relates nationally and internationally. For
example, our work to
protect the ESA and species
all across North America, including
Mexico.
Working Assets
Donations Manager
101 Market Street, Suite
700
San Francisco, CA 94105
or
email:
wald@wafs.com
______________________
TEAR DOWN THE FOSSIL CREEK
DAM
The following Editorial by the Arizona Daily Star
supports the
dismantling of the Childs-Irving
Hydroelectric Project on Fossil Creek
near
Strawberry, AZ. The Center has asked Federal
Energy Regulatory
Commission to decommission the
dam and restore the flows to Fossil
Creek.
Pulling the plug
THE ARIZONA DAILY STAR
In Maine, a
dam is coming down. That this is
happening holds out hope that other dams
-
including at least one in Arizona - will soon be
pulled out of America's
much-abused rivers.
The Maine victory shows why so many dams need
to
go.
Twenty-four feet high, 917 feet wide, Edwards Dam
on Maine's
Kennebec River never made any sense as
an economic and ecological
accounting.
On the one ledger, it generated just one-tenth of
1
percent of Maine's annual energy usage. On the
other, the aging hydroelectric
facility did
serious damage to nine species of Atlantic fish by
blocking
them from their traditional spawning
grounds, all while depriving Mainers of
a scenic
water course for recreation. A reassuring
rationality therefore
shapes this month's
dismantling.
Yet what is even more encouraging
about the
deconstruction are its politics - and what they
bode for other
dams, specifically the one in
northern Arizona.
The Edwards case,
after all, sets a precedent: It
represents the first time the federal
government
has ordered a dam dismantled over a private
owner's objection.
At last, apparently, the
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission -
which
regulates about 2,300 non-federal hydroelectric
dams - is ready to
begin balancing ecological
values with energy yields when reviewing a
dam's
license.
And so the freeing of the Kennebec this month
raises
hopes for similar action on Arizona Public
Service Co.'s archaic
Childs-Irving Hydroelectric
Project on Fossil Creek near Strawberry,
which
could become the nation's second private dam to be
forced from
service.
Now up for reauthorization, Childs-Irving's
marginal power
plant in no way justifies the
environmental harm of the old-time flume
system's
diversion of 95 percent of Fossil Creek's cool
spring water out
of the streambed.
The regulators should therefore yank the
dam's
license and order the water returned to the creek
to maintain its
flow. Then a rare travertine
stream, its mineral-lined pools and its
riverside
ecosystems could be restored.
At any rate, Arizonans should
revel in the
deconstruction of Edwards Dam, and hope it
portends similar
progress here.
Perhaps it won't take Ed Abbey's ``monkey-wrench
gang''
of eco-terrorists to remove the nation's
worst small
dams.
___________________________________________________________
Shane
Jimerfield
Assistant Director
Center for Biological Diversity
Tel:
520.623.5252, ext
302
Fax: 520.623.9797
PO Box 710, Tucson AZ
85702-0710
http://www.sw-center.org