No.
311, July 29, 2002
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ASARCO/GRUPO MEXICO ORDERED OUT OF IRONWOOD FOREST NATIONAL MONUMENT
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CENTER
GIVES TESTIMONY ON FIRE TO SENATE COMMITTEE
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SAN
PEDRO RIVER STILL ALIVE - KOLBE RIDER DEFEATED IN APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE
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SUIT
FILED TO PROTECT NEAR EXTINCT BOCACCIO ROCKFISH
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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 Centers 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 Kolbes
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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