************* CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY
*************
http://www.sw-center.org
ALERT #199 8-18-99
§ CENTER WINS DETAILED REVIEW OF DEVELOPMENT IMPACTS
ON
BIGHORN
§ JUDGE STRIKES BLOW AGAINST MINING GIANT IN CENTER
SUIT
§ THREE TIMBER SALES NEAR GRAND CANYON APPEALED
§ BLM PLAN
AMENDMENT PROTESTED: WOULD ALLOW ILL ADVISED
LAND EXCHANGE WITH MINING
GIANT
ASARCO
______________________
CENTER WINS DETAILED REVIEW OF DEVELOPMENT IMPACTS
ON
BIGHORN
In response to a scathingly comment letter from
the
Center, the City of Rancho Mirage near Palm Springs has
reversed its
position and agreed to require full
environmental review of a huge
development in
endangered Peninsular bighorn sheep habitat. The
Mirada
development will destroy 226 acres of sheep habitat and
result in
the death of at least one bighorn. A shocking
total of 406 acres will be lost
with development of
both Mirada and the adjacent Ritz Carlton resort
(owned
by a subsidiary of Maxxam). But despite these massive
impacts, the
City had proposed to let the Mirada
developer slide through the permitting
process with a
Negative Declaration, the least possible analysis
required
by the California Environmental Quality Act.
Both the Mirada and Ritz
Carlton projects are located
in prime sheep habitat in the foothills of the
Santa
Rosa Mountains. Bighorn populations in this range have
plummeted by
60% since the early eighties as exclusive
gated community developments have
chewed up important
habitat. In an effort to counter these losses,
the
Center has also sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
seeking
designation of critical habitat for the
Peninsular bighorn.
The is
another in a series of initiatives which are
part of the Center for
Biological Diversity's Golden
State Biodiversity Initiative. The Center
was
represented in this CEQA review by attorney
Wayne
Brechtel.
______________________
JUDGE STRIKES BLOW AGAINST
MINING GIANT IN CENTER SUIT
The Center has won an important ruling in a
step
towards resolution of a lawsuit against the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife
Service over the agency's failure to
designate critical habitat for the loach
minnow and
spikedace, two endangered Gila River basin fish. The
agency is
13 years late in protecting habitat for these
species.
Mining behemoth
Phelps Dodge intervened in the case
last year and immediately sought
dismissal with a
bizarre argument that the Center has no "standing" to
sue
over the issue. Phelps Dodge argued that Center
employees or members would
need to visit streams
occupied by the species and directly view
individual
fish before they could be harmed by the agency's
failure to
protect habitat. But viewing the fish is
impossible without catching them in
a net, the Company
then argued, and therefore the Center could have
no
standing.
But using this argument, blind people could have
no
standing to bring any endangered species act lawsuit.
The Judge
recognized the absurdity of the claim and
ruled that the Center could proceed
with the suit.
The Center is represented in this case by attorney
Matt
Kenna.
______________________
THREE TIMBER SALES NEAR GRAND
CANYON APPEALED
The Center for Biological Diversity has appealed
three
timber sales on the Kaibab National Forest in northern
Arizona. The
Dry Park timber sale, co-appealed by the
Center, the Southwest Forest
Alliance and Grand Canyon
Chapter of the Sierra Club, would log up to
eight
million board feet of ponderosa pine on the Kaibab
Plateau, located
on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.
The Plateau contains some of the finest
old growth
ponderosa remaining in the Southwest, and also harbors
the
densest breeding population of northern goshawk in
all of North America.
Despite this fact, the proposed
action would log over 6,000 old growth trees
and would
illegally cut within goshawk nest areas.
The Spring Valley
timber sale, located south of the
Grand Canyon near Williams, would also log
hundreds of
large ponderosa. Like the Dry Park Sale, the Spring
Valley
Sale also includes proposed logging within
designated goshawk nest sites. The
easily accessible
South Rim area was decimated by railroad logging
around
the turn of the century, and today is nearly devoid of
large trees.
The Irishman project, also located near
Williams, is a massive pinyon-juniper
clearcut designed
to "improve forage conditions." The proposed
action
includes the construction of over 10 stock tanks.
Despite the
obvious intent of the project to increase
cattle numbers on the Irishman
area, the Forest Service
refused to consider grazing in its
environmental
analysis.
The Kaibab's inexplicable attempt to revive
its timber
program flies in the face of widespread public and
scientific
opposition to logging on public lands,
especially logging of old growth.
Write to Forest
Supervisor Conny Frisch and tell her not one more
yellow
pine or old growth pinyon-juniper!
Kaibab National Forest
Conny
Frisch
800 S. 6th Street
Williams, AZ
86046
______________________
BLM PLAN AMENDMENT PROTESTED: WOULD ALLOW
ILL ADVISED
LAND EXCHANGE WITH MINING GIANT ASARCO
A decision by the
BLM to authorize an enormous land
swap with ASARCO has been formally
protested by the
Center for Biological Diversity and the Western
Land
Exchange Project. If approved, ASARCO would acquire
10,000 acres of
land in exchange for 7,000 of its
private holdings. The public land to be
given away
borders the spectacular White Canyon Wilderness, and
was an
"Area of Critical Environmental Concern" (ACEC),
until BLM removed the
designation two years ago under
pressure from ASARCO. ASARCO would use the
land to
expand its already enormous Ray copper mine near
Hayden, Arizona,
resulting in massive dewatering of the
beleaguered Gila River and threatening
the recovery of
river dependent species such as the Southwestern
willow
flycatcher.
The Ray exchange is merely the latest example
of
corrupt relationships between Arizona BLM personnel and
the state's
copper mining industry. For example, many
staffers in the Safford field
office are paid by the
Phelps Dodge mining corporation to facilitate
similar
exchanges. Land exchanges are required by law to be in
the public
interest, but with copper prices at 100 year
lows and thousands of workers
being laid off across the
state, the only interest being served is clearly
the
corporate bottom
line.
___________________________________________________________
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