Subject: SW BIODIVERSITY ALERT #68
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SOUTHWEST BIODIVERSITY ALERT
#68
4/16/97
SOUTHWEST CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL
DIVERSITY
silver
city, tucson, phoenix, san diego
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HISTORIC SUIT
CHALLENGES MANAGEMENT OF HOOVER DAM, LOWER
COLORADO RIVER
The
Southwest Center today filed an ESA suit against the Bureau of
Reclamation
over the agency's failure to protect habitat for a
critical southwestern
willow flycatcher population at Lake Mead
on the Colorado River. For
nearly 22 months Reclamation has
illegally maintained high water levels
behind Hoover Dam which
have flooded 1400 acres of occupied flycatcher
habitat. The Center
is seeking an injunction requiring Reclamation to
lower Mead water
levels by approximately 21 feet through increased releases
from
Hoover Dam. If successful, extensive flycatcher habitat will
be
protected, 3.5 million acre feet of fresh water may reach the
highly
salinated Gulf of California, and industrial water
management assumptions
will be shattered.
Located where the Colorado River exits the Grand
Canyon and flows
into Lake Mead, riparian habitat rooted in rich sediments
deposited
during massive flooding in the early eighties now supports
as
many as 42 flycatcher territories. Only six flycatcher
populations
throughout the range of the species support more than
twenty
territories. Barring successful litigation, three of these
populations
will be sacrificed to powerful water interests and the flycatcher
may
become extinct. The FWS issued several jeopardy opinions on
the
flycatcher in 1996 and is on record repeatedly saying that
extinction
is foreseeable for the small songbird.
To protect the three
endangered populations, the Center filed suit
this month against Hoover Dam
and Roosevelt Dam. Last month, it pressed
for federal criminal charges to be
filed against Assistant Secretary
of Interior John Garamandi for ordering the
flooding flycatchers at
Lake Isabella in California. The Center expects to
file suit against
Isabella Dam this summer.
The Lake Mead flycatcher
suit is the latest round in a long running
battle between the Southwest
Center and Reclamation over protection
of endangered species and habitats on
the lower Colorado River. In
response to designation of critical habitat for
the Bonytail chub,
Colorado squawfish, and razorback sucker, Reclamation in
1995
began consultation with the Fish and Wildlife Service over the
impacts
of river management on listed species. It quickly became apparent
that
formal consultation between the two agencies might actually lead
to
substantive changes in river management to benefit wildlife. Because
of
this, Arizona, California, and Nevada water and power interests
squashed the
consultation and, together with the Feds, began
work on the Lower Colorado
River Multiple Species Conservation
Program (habitat conservation plan).
Reclamation returned to formal
consultation only after threats of litigation
from the Center.
Despite entering into consultation, Reclamation
maintains it is
permitted to continue flooding the flycatcher's habitat and
ignoring
the needs of the bonytail chub, razor back sucker, and
Colorado
squawfish. It believes existing water management plans
supersede
the Endangered Species Act.
The Southwest Center is
represented in the Hoover Dam suit by Travis
Stills and Kenna and
Associates.
Kieran
Suckling
ksuckling@sw-center.org
Executive
Director
520.733.1391 phone
Southwest Center for Biological
Diversity 520.733.1404 fax
http://www.envirolink.org/orgs/sw-center
pob 17839, tucson, az 85731