No. 311, July 29, 2002


  • ASARCO/GRUPO MEXICO ORDERED OUT OF IRONWOOD FOREST NATIONAL MONUMENT

  • CENTER GIVES TESTIMONY ON FIRE TO SENATE COMMITTEE

  • SAN PEDRO RIVER STILL ALIVE - KOLBE RIDER DEFEATED IN APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE

  • SUIT FILED TO PROTECT NEAR EXTINCT BOCACCIO ROCKFISH

  • CENTER OPENS ALASKA OFFICE


ASARCO/GRUPO MEXICO ORDERED OUT OF IRONWOOD FOREST NATIONAL MONUMENT

After over a year of negotiations with mining giant ASARCO/Grupo Mexico, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) issued a trespass notice 5-17-02 to the company for illegally building a pipeline, powerline and road within the Ironwood Forest National Monument, west of Tucson. ASARCO's trespass lies within the Silverbell Mountains, home to the last viable desert bighorn sheep herd in the Tucson basin, and important habitat for the endangered Cactus ferruginous pygmy-owl and Nicols turks head cactus. The trespass notice ordered ASARCO to place a $1.1 million surety bond within 30 days and says this corporate crime may also involve violations of the Endangered Species Act, National Historic Preservation Act, Archaeological Resource Protection Act, Clean Water Act and mining laws.

Despite the strong local concern, ASARCO lobbied Interior Secretary Gale Norton, Congressman Jim Kolbe and others to acquire 432 acres of Monument lands to get itself out of the less than 10 acre illegal trespass. Political, legal and media pressure from the Center, Coalition for Sonoran Desert Protection, Arizona Desert Bighorn Sheep Society, Sierra Club and local land owners blocked any such back-room industry favoritism.

Although ASARCO has been ordered to remove the pipeline, powerline and road from the Ironwood Monument, conservationists are disturbed that the new BLM-Tucson field office manager, is now working to protect ASARCO instead of the Monument. In recent secret meetings with ASARCO, BLM agreed to slash the bond by $1 million, and seems willing to accept the company's "rip and run" plan in response to the trespass notice. The Center, Western Mining Action Project and others are following up on outstanding concerns about toxic contamination, lack of a scientifically supportable habitat restoration and monitoring plan, disturbance to bighorns during critical mating and lambing seasons, and failure to enact conservation easements agreed to ten years ago.


CENTER GIVES TESTIMONY ON FIRE TO SENATE COMMITTEE

Center for Biological Diversity forest policy director Todd Schulke testified in front of a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on the National Fire Plan on 7-16-02. The testimony outlines the Center’s restoration and community protection efforts and recommendations, and included a response to inaccurate and misleading allegations about causes of the Rodeo-Chedeski fire.

The Center is a part of the Collaborative Forest Restoration Program and other community forest groups that represent diverse interests, support ecologically-based restoration methods and community protection programs focused on small-tree fuel reduction in wildland urban interfaces.

During the hearing Arizona Senator John Kyl made it quite clear that he will push for increased logging of large trees, destructive salvage logging, and gutting of our environmental laws to make it easier for the Forest Service and the timber industry to log the last big trees from our national forests.

To let Senator Kyl know you oppose his logging agenda contact him at his Washington, D.C. office:

730 Hart Senate Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
Phone: (202) 224-4521

For the Senate testimony, click here.

For more information on fire and ecosystem health, click here.


SAN PEDRO RIVER STILL ALIVE - KOLBE RIDER DEFEATED IN APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE

Representative Kolbe’s attempt to exempt Ft. Huachuca from water conservation measures that protect the San Pedro River failed on 7-17-02. On 4-11-02 the fort was ordered by a federal judge to produce a "verifiable" and "accountable" plan to mitigate its groundwater producing actions both on-post and off-post.

The rider would have given the fort a loophole exemption from mitigating off-post actions. Without this mitigation, the river cannot be saved. The San Pedro is at risk from excessive dewatering of the base stream flow from increasing numbers of local Department of Defense private contractors off-base.

The Center for Biological Diversity, other groups and thousands of members and supporters concerned about the San Pedro and the countless wildlife and birds that depend upon it told the Appropriations committee to reject the rider and vote on behalf of the river. They listened.

A big thank you goes out to all those who called, emailed and wrote to your representatives and Senate Appropriations committee members. We also especially thank key House and Senate supporters of the San Pedro who were instrumental in defeating the rider. Please contact these committee members and thank them for their support:

Senator Robert C. Byrd (D-WV)
311 Hart Building
Washington D.C. 20510
DC: (202) 224-3954
WV: (304) 342-5855

Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
331 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
DC: (202) 224-3841
CA: (415) 393-0707
Senator James Jeffords (I-VT)
728 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
DC: (202) 224-5141
VT: (802) 223-5273

Senator Harry Reed (D-NV)
528 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
DC: (202) 224-3542
NV: (775) 882-7343

Rep. Norm Dicks (D-WA):
2467 Rayburn House Office Bldg.
Washington, D.C. 20515
(800) 947-NORM (947-6676)
DC: (202) 225-5916 [voice]

Rep. John P. Mertha (D-PA)
2423 Rayburn HOB
Washington, DC 20515-3812
DC: (202) 225-2065
PA: (814) 535-2642

Rep. David R. Obey (D-WI)
2314 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
DC: (202) 225-3365
WI: (715) 842-5606

Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R-FL)
2407 Rayburn Building
Washington, DC 20515
DC: (202) 225-5961
FL: (727) 893-3191

For more information about the San Pedro River, click here.


SUIT FILED TO PROTECT NEAR EXTINCT BOCACCIO ROCKFISH

On 6-27-02, the Center for Biological Diversity, NRDC and Ocean Conservancy filed a suit against the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) for their failure to protect the bocaccio rockfish (Sebastes paucispinis). The southern population of the bocaccio rockfish (also called Pacific red snapper) has declined by more than 98 percent since 1969.

Bocaccio were once the dominant species of rockfish caught by fisherman on the Pacific coast, but overfishing and habitat degredation have taken their toll. The piers, rocky areas and kelp forests inhabited by young bocaccio are near the urbanized coast and are degraded by stormwater runoff, oil spills and other pollution. The deep waters favored by adult bocaccio have been altered by the repeated scraping of the ocean floor by heavy trawl nets and other bottom-fishing gear.

The Center for Biological Diversity, NRDC, and the Center for Marine Conservation first petitioned NMFS to list the bocaccio under the Endangered Species Act in January, 2001. NMFS responded with a positive initial finding, and a formal proposal to list the species as "threatened" was expected in March, 2002. But NMFS has stalled, and has yet to issue the proposal. Meanwhile the bocaccio is near extinction, its fate signaling an ongoing crisis in global commercial fisheries.

To read the listing petition, click here.


CENTER OPENS ALASKA OFFICE

To expand its Alaskan conservation efforts, the Center for Biological Diversity has opened up an office in Sitka. Corrie Bosman is the Center's new Alaska Program Coordinator. Corrie has been involved with conservation work for the past 12 years. Prior to joining the Center, she spent three and a half years working for the Alaska Rainforest Campaign protecting the wildlands of Alaska's coastal temperate rainforest. She received her Masters of Science in Environmental Studies (focusing on forest and marine biology) and her Doctor of Jurisprudence with a certificate in Natural Resource Law from the University of Oregon. Corrie currently resides in beautiful Sitka, AK in the heart of the Tongass National Forest.

Alaska is universally viewed as America's wildest state. It is the only state where wolves and bears roam freely in large numbers. The wolverine and lynx, both threatened in the lower 48, still exist in relatively healthy numbers in Alaska. Salmon, seemingly everywhere else gone or in decline, return in almost unfathomable numbers to many streams in Alaska. But despite its size and visible natural abundance, Alaska is not immune to the extinction crisis. Alaska's environment, from its forests in the southeast to the Coastal Plain of the Arctic is under threat from logging, mining, oil development, overfishing, urban sprawl, and plain bad management. The Center is pleased to launch a sustained campaign to protect Alaska's species and habitats from these threats and help maintain it as our wildest state.

The Center first brought its unique strategy of scientific research, environmental litigation and coalition building to Alaska in 1994 when it filed petitions to protect the Queen Charlotte goshawk and the Alexander Archipelago wolf under the ESA. Since that time the Center and its partners have gained protections for the goshawk, wolf, Steller's eider, spectacled eider, and Cook Inlet beluga whale. We currently have ESA petitions pending to protect the Kitlittz's murrelet, Aleutian sea otter, bowhead whale, right whale, and goshawk.

To learn more about the Center's Alaska Biodiversity Program contact:
Corrie Bosman
P.O. Box 6157
Sitka, AK 99835
(907) 747-1463
cbosman@biologicaldiversity.org

For more information about our Alaska campaign, click here.


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