From: Kieran Suckling [ksuckling@sw-center.org]
Sent:
Friday, November 05, 1999 8:21 PM
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Subject: BIODIVERSITY ALERT
#211
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CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY
<www.sw-center.org>
11-3-99
#211
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§
YAVAPAI-APACHE TRIBE CALLS FOR RESTORATION
FREE FLOWING FOSSIL
CREEK
§ FREE FOSSIL CREEK! JOIN PROTEST AGAINST THE
DAMMING/DIVERSION OF ARIZONA'S RIVERS
§ JUDGE RULES GILA RIVER FISH
IMPERILED BY
CENTRAL ARIZONA PROJECT- SETS STAGE
FOR
CHALLENGE TO MITIGATION MEASURES
§ FISH &
WILDLIFE SERVICE PLANNED TO RE-LOCATE
WOLVES TO GILA WILDERNESS-
POLITICS MAY
KILL PLAN
YAVAPAI-APACHE TRIBE CALLS FOR
RESTORATION
FREE FLOWING FOSSIL CREEK
In a letter to the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission (FERC),
the Yavapai-Apache Tribe has asked to be
granted official
intervenor status in the Arizona Public Service
Company's
application to relicense its diversion dams and power plants
on
Fossil Creek. The Center for Biological Diversity and
other
environmental groups were accepted as intervenors in the
past.
The Yavapai-Apache informed FERC that Fossil Creek is not
only
an integral part of their ancestral home lands, but that this
importance
continues to this day. FERC is the federal agency
responsible for allowing
Arizona Public Service to divert the
entire flow of Fossil Creek. The Tribe,
joining the U.S. Fish &
Wildlife Service, the U.S. Forest Service, the
Center, and other
environmental groups , called for the return of full flows
to Fossil
Creek.
_____________________
FREE FOSSIL CREEK! JOIN PROTEST AGAINST
THE
DAMMING/DIVERSION OF ARIZONA'S RIVERS
For 90 years the Arizona Public
Service Company (APS) has
dammed and diverted 98% of the entire flow of
Fossil Creek
to run their Irving and Childs power plants.
This
gorgeous stream, which flows from one of
Arizona's largest springs, is being
sacrificed to produce
one-tenth of one percent of all the electrical power
generated
by APS. The first dam diverts nearly the entire flow of the
creek, leaving only the first quarter mile of Fossil Creek
functioning
naturally. The rest, a 25-mile stretch, lies barren
while the water is
transported in an ugly scar of a metal
flume from plant to plant, never
returning to the thirsty
streambed.
Long run on a series of temporary
permits, APS has submitted
a 30 year application for re-licensing to the
Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission (FERC) under the Federal Power Act.
The Center has asked FERC to deny the application. Ninety
years of
corporate greed is enough. Full flows need to be
returned to Fossil
Creek. APS' dams and the two power plants
must be de-commissioned.
Join the Center for Biological Diversity in a protest against
continuing the destruction of Fossil Creek by APS. On 11-18-99
a large
group of river activists will gather at the APS headquarters
in
Phoenix. APS' headquarters is on the northwest corner of
5th St. and
Van Buren. The gathering will be from 11am to 2 pm.
Signs, materials,
carpools, parking, and refreshments will be
provided. Contact Lisa Force for
more information 602-246-6498,
lforce@sw-center.org.
If you can't
make it to the protest, call or write APS today. Tell
them to withdraw their
application, de-commission the power
plants, and restore full flows to
Fossil Creek.
Contact:
Bill Post, President, Arizona Public
Service Company
P.O. Box 53999, Phoenix, AZ 85072-3999
Phone (602) 250-2588, Fax (602) 250-3002
Richard Snell, Chairman,
Pinnacle West Capital Corporation
P.O. Box 52132, Phoenix, AZ
85072-2132
Phone (602) 379-2600, Fax (602) 379-2625
__________________________
JUDGE RULES GILA
RIVER FISH IMPERILED BY
CENTRAL ARIZONA PROJECT- SETS STAGE FOR
CHALLENGE
TO MITIGATION MEASURES
On 9-30-99, federal judge David Ezra issued a ruling
that
exotic fish and bacteria which will enter the Gila River
Basin
(including the San Pedro River and Aravaipa Creek) through
the
Central Arizona Project are likely to jeopardize the continued
existence of the loach minnow, spikedace, razorback sucker,
and Gila
topminnow.
The Central Arizona Project is a complex system of
canals
which divert and transport Colorado River water over 350
miles to
southeast Arizona. The financial boondoggle has
bankrupted several water
conservation districts, contributes
to desperate ecological problems in the
Colorado River
Delta, and will pump polluted water and dangerous
exotic
species in the Gila River and its tributaries. The
U.S. Fish & Wildlife
Service issued a jeopardy decision on
the project and was sued by the Central
Arizona Water
Conservation District which argued that the native
fish
would not be seriously threatened, and that expensive
mitigation
measures are therefore not necessary. The Center
intervened on behalf of the
Fish & Wildlife Service,
demonstrating that the threat is enormous and
demonstrable.
With the water industry's suit out of the way, Ezra
will
proceed to here a related suit by the Center, arguing that
the
proposed mitigation measures are not sufficient to
protect the imperiled
native fish of the Gila River Basin.
The Center is represented by Jay
Touchton of EarthLaw.
________________________
FISH
& WILDLIFE SERVICE PLANNED TO RE-LOCATE
WOLVES TO GILA WILDERNESS-
POLITICS MAY KILL
PLAN
In the wake of his ouster as head of the U.S. Fish
& Wildlife
Service's Mexican Wolf Recovery Team, David Parsons has
revealed that under his leadership, the agency had planned to
immediately re-locate a small number of recently re-captured
wolves
to the Gila/Aldo Leopold Wilderness complex and to
develop a long-term plan
to reintroduce captive bred wolves
directly to the Gila. "There are large,
roadless, car-less,
cattleless areas in the Gila National Forest, about
800,000
acres that meet that criteria," Parsons told the Albuquerque
Journal on 10-30-99.
The Fish & Wildlife Service broke an
agreement with Parsons to
allow him to opt for early retirement and then be
re-hired on a
contract basis. At best, his ouster will delay the Gila
release,
at worst, it may signal a political decision by the agency to kill
the re-location plan.
The Center has developed a "Wolf Safe Haven
Plan" in 1998 to
reintroduce Mexican gray wolves to the Gila/Aldo Leopold
wilderness complex:
<http://www.sw-center.org/swcbd/activist/wolfhaven.html>
_____________________________________________________________
Kierán
Suckling
ksuckling@sw-center.org
Executive
Director
520.623.5252 phone
Center for Biological Diversity
520.623.9797 fax
<http://www.sw-center.org>
pob 710, tucson, az 85702-0710