Subject: SW BIODIVERSITY ALERT
#89
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SOUTHWEST BIODIVERSITY ALERT
#89
8/17/97
SOUTHWEST CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL
DIVERSITY
silver
city, tucson, phoenix, san
diego
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1.
THREE TIMBER SALES, ONE ROAD APPEALED
2. MEDIA: CENTER TO SUE TO STOP LOW
LEVEL FLIGHTS OF GERMAN AIR
FORCE OVER THE GILA
WILDERNESS
3. CENTER TO SUE OVER DAM/DIVERSION IMPACTS TO SEA OF CORTEZ
AND
COLORADO RIVER DELTA
4. FOREST SERVICE RESISTING
CLINTON ATTEMPT TO REIGN IN RIGHT-OF-WAY
LOOPHOLE ON NATIONAL
FOREST
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THREE TIMBER SALES, ONE ROAD APPEALED
The
Southwest Center for Biological Diversity has appealed three
timber sales and
one road construction project. The 7 million
board foot, 2,300 acre, Elk Lee
Timber Sale on the Kaibab
National Forest is on the headwall of Sycamore
Canyon and near
to the Sycamore Creek Wilderness Area. Though
supposedly
recreating "pre-settlement conditions" it will take out many
old
growth ponderosa pine trees to "control" mistletoe. The sale
violates
Forest Plan requirements to project environmental effects
5, 20, and 40 years
following logging.
The Beacon Timber Sale, on the Kaibab National Forest,
would
log 3 million board feet on over 1,000 acres. It too slates
old
growth pines for the saw based on mistletoe control and fails
to
project long-term effects.
The Lily Timber Sale on the Gila
National Forest in Catron County
would log 1.1 million board feet, causing
further sedimentation in
the cowburnt San Francisco River. It violates a 1992
Forest Plan
amendment which limited the sale to 200,000 board
feet.
Following failed mandatory negotiations, the Gila National Forest
is
apparently backtracking on sale, claiming it will cut only 100
trees over 16"
dbh.
The Center has appealed the construction of one mile of new
road
on the Santa Rita Ranger District of the Coronado National
Forest.
Rather than asserting its right-of-way through an inholding,
the Forest
Service is building a new road around it, setting a
dangerous precedent that
could result in thousands of miles of new
road construction on National
Forests throughout the West.
WRITE NOW! Letters generated from previous
Biodiversity
Alerts are definately having an effect on the Kaibab
National
Forest, forcing them to begin developing a "yellow pine
policy
statement." Tell the Kaibab to stop cutting old growth
ponderosa
pines in the name of mistletoe control!
Connie Fritsch,
Kaibab Forest Supervisor, 520.635.8200
800 S. 6th Street, Williams, AZ
86046
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_____ _____
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MEDIA: CENTER TO SUE TO STOP LOW
LEVEL FLIGHTS OF GERMAN AIR FORCE
OVER THE GILA WILDERNESS
Center
Opposes Plan to Expand Holloman
Albuquerque Journal, August 6,
1997
"The Southwest Center for Biological Diversity has threatened
to
take the Air Force to court if it continues with a proposed
expansion
of Holloman Air Force Base near Alamogordo."
A bombing range and
low-level flight paths are part of the
proposal, which the Air Force is says
is necessary to support an
expansion of the German Air Force operation at
Holloman.
'We're definately going to take the military to court
if they
proceed,' said Peter Galvin, a conservation biologist at the
Center.
The Center is challenging an environmental impact
statement
done by Air Combat Command headquarters in Virginia
that
concludes the expansion will cause no significant
environmental
impact.
Galvin said the low-level flights will impact
wildernes areas in the
Gila National Forest as well as a wilderness study
area north of the
proposed bombing range."
_____ _____
_____ _____ _____
CENTER
TO SUE OVER DAM/DIVERSION IMPACTS TO SEA OF CORTEZ AND COLORADO
RIVER
DELTA
The Southwest Center has given official notice to the Bureau
of
Reclamation, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National
Marine
Fisheries Service that it will sue, if necessary, to ensure
that the Bureau
considers the impacts of its Colorado River dams
and water diversions on the
Colorado River Delta and Sea of
Cortez. The Totoaba, a large marine predator,
and the Vaquita, a
small porpoise, are threatened by lack of fresh water
flowing
across the U.S./Mexico border to the delta. In some years,
no
water at all reaches to the sea.
_____ _____
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FOREST SERVICE RESISTING CLINTON
ATTEMPT TO REIGN IN RIGHT-OF-WAY
LOOPHOLE ON NATIONAL FOREST
In 1866,
Congress passed R.S. 2477 granting rights-of-way for the
"construction of
highways over public lands" not reserved for
other uses. County
commissioners, the motorized vehicle lobby,
and their Congressional allies
have seized on R.S. 2477 as a tool to
punch motorized trails through
potential and existing wilderness
and to hog-tie federal agencies attempting
to manage trails to
protect water quality, wildlife, and peace and
quiet. President
Clinton earlier this year killed a Congressional
proposal to
interpret the law so broadly that it could have allowed counties
to
pave new roads across National Parks and other public lands.
The
Administration is being stymied by the Forest Service,
however, in its
attempt to draft legislation to set fair rules for
determining when "public
highways" were actually "constructed."
they've hit a roadblock: the US
Forest Service. The Forest Service
is pushing a policy that would permit
counties to claim a highway
had been constructed where someone had kicked
rocks or
trampled weeds on a trail. The Forest Service's proposal is
even
worse that the Reagan Administration's "Hodel Policy" making it
even
easier to surrender trails to counties.
This May, the Rio Grande National
Forest in southern Colorado
"validated" a county right-of-way under RS 2477
to a jeep trail,
part of which the Forest had closed to motorized use 18
months
ago to protect alpine tundra and lakes! Based only on a few
maps
and surveys presented by motorized vehicle lobbyists, the
Forest
surrendered management of the trail to Alamosa County
without
public involvement or notification. The Forest plans surrender
up
to 65 more roads and trails to other counties- several within
the
Sangre de Cristo Wilderness.
THE SOLUTION: A MORATORIUM ON R.S.
2477 CLAIMS.
The Forest Service trail give-away must end. And the best
way to
do it is to get the Forest Service to do what the Department of
the
Interior has already done: stop processing all R.S.
2477
right-of-way claims until the Clinton Administration adopts
a
reasonable, uniform policy. Defining "construction" to mean
trampling
weeds and kicking rocks out of the way just
isn't
reasonable!
WRITE NOW! Write Mr. Michael Dombeck, Chief,
USDA
Forest Service, 14th & Independence Avenue S.W., Washington,
D.C.
20250, FAX: 202/205-1765. Tell him to: (1)
immediately
impose a moratorium on processing R.S. 2477 claims; (2) junk
the
Hodel Policy and adopt stricter standards, like the ones he
approved
when he was BLM Director.
For more information, contact:
Ted
Zukoski, LAW Fund <landwater@lawfund.org>
Heidi McIntosh,
Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance
<Heidi@suwa.org>
_____________________________________________________________________________
Kieran
Suckling
ksuckling@sw-center.org
Executive
Director
520.623.5252 phone
Southwest Center for Biological
Diversity 520.623.9797 fax
http://www.envirolink.org/orgs/sw-center
pob 710, tucson, az 85702-710