Subject: SW BIODIVERSITY ALERT #78
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SOUTHWEST BIODIVERSITY ALERT
#78
5/29/97
SOUTHWEST CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL
DIVERSITY
silver
city, tucson, phoenix, san diego
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1. NAFTA
COMMISSION TO INVESTIGATE DEWATERING OF SAN PEDRO RIVER
2.
EDITORIAL BLASTS ATTEMPT TO SUBSTITUTE "ZOO" FOR PROTECTION
OF
SAN PEDRO RIVER
3. STAY DECISION HALTS
BLM/PHELPS DODGE LAND EXCHANGE
***** ***** *****
NAFTA
COMMISSION TO INVESTIGATE DEWATERING OF SAN PEDRO RIVER
NAFTA's
Commission for Environmental Cooperation has ruled in
favor of a petition by
the Southwest Center asking for an
international investigation into the
dewatering of the San Pedro
River. The request was made following repeated
refusals by the U.S.
Army to analyze the impacts of expanding Fort
Huachuca on the
river. Numerous studies demonstrate that aquifer drawdown
has
created a "cone of depression," drawing water out of the
river.
Hydrologists predict that the San Pedro may completely dry
up
within a decade.
This is the first time the Commission has agreed
to investigate an
environmental problem in the United States. The Commission
has
yet to issue a final decision on a second petition by the
Southwest
Center charging that the military is circumventing
U.S.
environmental laws by failing to analyze its effects on the San
Pedro.
The Commission ordered E.P.A. to respond to the charges (the
first
time it has ordered the U.S. to respond to environmental charges)
but
has not yet ruled on the agency's evasive answer.
Both petitions
where filed on behalf of the Southwest Center by
Earthlaw (Denver) and are
available on Earthlaw's home page:
http://www.envirolink.org/orgs/elaw/
Earthlaw
previously petitioned the Commission on behalf of the
Southwest Center and
Forest Guardians to rule that the Salvage
Rider violated NAFTA requirements
that member nations obey their
own environmental laws. The Commission
refused.
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EDITORIAL BLASTS ATTEMPT TO SUBSTITUTE "ZOO"
FOR PROTECTION OF
SAN PEDRO RIVER
The following editorial appeared in the Arizona
Daily Star on
5/28/97. It faults a plan by the Town of Sierra Vista to
circumvent
protection of endangered plants on the San Pedro River, by
growing
them in herbariums. The Southwest Center filed sucessful
ESA
petitions and litigation to list the Canelo Hills ladies' tresses
(and
orchid) and the Huachuca water umbel as endangered species. Both
live
in the San Pedro River or upper
watershed.
- -
-
This Ark Will Sink
Sierra Vista leaders, bridling at endangered
species laws, want to
start a center to cultivate and reintroduce rare
plants. Their hope is
this will circumvent coming requirements that might
limit growth.
To which we say: By all means study and propagate
threatened
species. But never forget that a species without habitat
cannot
survive, no matter what extraordinary measures human
ingenuity
contrives.
To that extent, Sierra Vista City Councilman
Harold Vangilder's
idea of a plant nursery for the Huachuca water umbel and
the Canelo
Hills lady's tresses remains potentially useful as a complement
to
other species efforts. But as a solution for preserving the rare
and
diminutive plants found along the nearby San Pedro River, it is
wacky
and cynical.
A focus on specific local ecosystems research - and even
captive
breeding - is always needed. Moreover, the broad support of
the
often ecologically insensitive Sierra Vista City Council for
a
potentially helpful research initiative is gratifying. So at worst
the
nursery plan seems harmless.
What is not harmless, though, are the
larger motivations and
suppositions of this and similar ``Noah's ark''
proposals.
The Sierra Vistans' sudden interest in endangered species has
little to
do with a desire to protect biodiversity and everything to do
with
keeping the urban sprawl machine rolling in the San Pedro
Valley,
where increased ground-water pumping threatens the river and
the
life it supports.
Vangilder and others say themselves they hope to
nurture the
faltering species - which are already endangered - mostly to head
off
mandatory protection. They know a U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service
designation of ``critical habitat'' could force them to limit their
town's
growth, so they want to avoid it - which is fine.
However, the
``ark'' plan's apparent cynicism and deludedness make clear
why the plant
center stratagem cannot suffice as the San Pedro
Valley's main species
program. First, there is Vangilder's past
environmental record, and a
newspaper column he wrote for the
Weekly Bulletin of Sonoita last year. That
piece referred to the two
plants and a listed salamander as ``two noxious
weeds and a member
of the fish-bait community'' - hardly an indication of
deep thought on
the topic.
Otherwise, science insists the health of
the larger ecosystem
ultimately determines a single species' health.
Likewise, experts on
the San Pedro itself say habitat deterioration, caused
by aquifer
drilling that is lowering the water table and reducing stream
flows,
remains the crucial cause of plant and animal distress
there.
And so a zany air of absurdity touches Sierra Vista's bid to
protect its
species without remedying the biggest threats they face - the
loss of
habitat to subdivision and ground-water pumping. It makes no
sense,
after all, to set up an artificial ``plant zoo'' without setting aside
land
and water for the plants' survival in the real world. Or as
Robin
Silver of the Southwest Center for Biological Diversity asks:
``What
good would it have done for Noah to have built the ark and
collected
the animals if there had not been a place to land?''
So with
that in mind the Sierra Vista City Council - and others
thinking about
pain-free fixes to the world's biodiversity crisis -
should recall there's no
easy evasion of the simple, basic need for
habitat. Captive-breeding, special
zoos, high-tech terrariums -
nothing can free human communities from the
responsibility of
insuring the on-the-ground integrity of natural
communities.
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STAY DECISION HALTS BLM/PHELPS DODGE LAND
EXCHANGE
On May 21, 1997, the Interior Board of Land Appeals issued a
stay,
preventing the Bureau of Land Management from trading 3,600
acres of
public land to Phelps Dodge in exchange for 1,000 acres of
private land. The
stay will remain in effect until the Board decides
the merits of appeals
filed by the Southwest Center and the San
Carlos Apache Tribe.
The
exchange would allow Phelps Dodge to expand operations of its
Morenci Mine
without conducting an Environmental Impact
Statement, yet BLM refused to
analyze the effects of future mining
on the property, claiming it can't
reasonably foresee what the mining
conglomerate wants the land for. Fifty
acres within a proposed BLM
Wild & Scenic River corridor where dropped
from the trade following
complaints from the Center.
Earlier this
year, the Southwest Center won an appeal of a BLM
plan to sell 460
acres of land to Phelps Dodge for $400 an acre. The
sale would have allowed
Phelps Dodge to reopen its Lavender Mine,
just outside Bisbee,
AZ.
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