Subject: FW: SW BIODIVERSITY ALERT #68


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