Subject: FW: SW BIODIVERSITY ALERT #20

Subject: SW BIODIVERSITY ALERT #20

* ************* Southwest Biodiversity Alert #20 *****************
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*            southwest center for biological diversity           *
*                      ksuckling@sw-center.org                   *
*             http://www.envirolink.org/orgs/sw-center           *
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1.  SUIT FILED TO HALT DESTRUCTION OF HOPI AND ZUNI RELIGIOUS SITE

2.  PETITION FILED TO STOP NEW MEXICO COAL MINE

3.  FOREST SERVICE AGREES TO E.I.S. ON GRAZING ALLOTMENTS

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SUIT FILED TO HALT DESTRUCTION OF HOPI AND ZUNI RELIGIOUS SITE

The Southwest Center has filed suit against the Federal Highway
Administration (FHA) for allowing Woodruff Butte to be used as gravel
pit for highway re-construction.  The traditional transition zone
between Hopi and Zuni spheres of influence, Woodruff Butt has
numerous Hopi and Zuni religious shrines. The townspeople of Woodruff
Butte, located near Holbrook, AZ are also opposed to the gravel mine.
The butte is also habitat for the endangered Peeble's Navajo cactus.

The FHA "categorically excluded" the highway re-construction project
from NEPA analysis, with no consideration of the impacts that would
occur from the gravel mine created to supply the re- construction
effort.


PETITION FILED TO STOP NEW MEXICO COAL MINE

The Southwest Center has submitted petitions to the New Mexico Mining
and Minerals Division (MMD), the Office of Surface Mining
Reclamation and Enforcement (OSM) and the U.S. Department of the
Interior to declare the proposed Fence Lake Mine area unsuitable for
surface coal mining.  The Salt River Project (SRP) plans to extract
over 81 million tons of coal from the mine over 38 years. The mine
would be near Quemado, New Mexico in Catron County.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) approved SRP's permit to mine
federal coal in 1990 based on a preliminary mine plan which estimated
the total volume of coal to be extracted at 52 million tons.
However, after the permit was approved, the volume of coal to be
extracted increased by 29 million tons to 81 million. The coal would
supply the Coronado Generating Station in St. John's, Arizona which
currently burns coal produced at the McKinley Mine on the Navajo
Reservation.

The proposed mine will use 25% of the groundwater in the surrounding
valleys.  It would destroy at least 252 Native American religious
sites which are eligible for listing in the National Register of
Historic Places, including the White Rock shrine sacred to the
Acoma, and the Zuni Salt Trails used by seven tribes for pilgrimages
to the Zuni Salt Lake.  SRP has proposed building overpasses above
the trails and relocating historic grave sites to the bottom an open
pit mine for "preservation."


3. FOREST SERVICE AGREES TO E.I.S. ON GRAZING ALLOTMENTS

The Tonto National Forest will prepare an EIS on grazing plans for
five grazing allotments in the Eastern Roosevelt Lake Watershed. The
allotments span 167,000 acres and include three wilderness areas. An
earlier attempt to push the plans through with an Environmental
Assessment was squashed by appeals from the Southwest Center, Forest
Guardians, and Jeff Burgess.

In a related case, the Bureau of Reclamation has agreed to prepare
supplemental NEPA analysis on plans to raise the level of Roosevelt
Lake, after being sued by the Southwest Center.  Roosevelt Dam has
already been reconstructed, but not filled.  Filling the dam will
destroy 25% of all endangered southwestern willow flycatcher nests
in Arizona. The Dam was constructed by BuRec for the Salt River
Project in 1911.