Government Workers Blast Babbitt

Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt will climb aboard a floating barge on the Neuse River near Goldsboro, North Carolina, Wednesday morning to demolish the 55-year-old, 260-foot long Quaker Neck Dam with an industrial wrecking ball.

The voluntary watershed restoration project, carried out under a public-private partnership between state and federal agencies, fisheries groups and Carolina Power & Light (CP&L), will improve fish habitat along a 75 mile (120 kilometer) stretch of the river and help replenish 925 miles (1480 kilometers) of tributary spawning areas.

"This dam removal is far more than a symbol of the shifting tide in American conservation," said Babbitt. "By unlocking the current from headwaters to the Atlantic, we yield a real windfall for the state's sportfishing industry, already the sixth largest in the country."

Last year, 1 million anglers fished 22 million days, generating $1.6 billion in the Tar Heel State. Opening 925 miles of freshwater spawning habitat for anadromous fish is expected to boost those numbers, generating tens of millions of dollars in rural markets.

But while Secretary Babbitt is wrecking dams, he is under attack from his own employees. Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), a national alliance of state and federal employees working in land management and pollution control agencies, has just released a report accusing Babbitt and others of suspending enforcement of the Endangered Species Act.

The report's title "War of Attrition," is drawn from a comment made by PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch about what he says is the failure of the Department of the Interior and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) to list species despite the findings of their own scientists.

Ruch said, "Fearing a political backlash, Clinton Administration officials are themselves playing politicis by blocking new listing recommendations from their own scientists. The Department of Interior is waging a war of attrition against unprotected wildlife."

Blaming budgetary limitations, USFWS has stopped reviewing almost all new listing petitions. But the agency is spending millions of dollars to fight lawsuits brought by environmental groups to force listing of various species.

More than 20 species have recently been listed after court orders. The status of nearly 300 species is now the subject of pending lawsuits, while notices of intent to sue have been filed on behalf of another 150 species.

The actions of Secretary Babbitt in regard to listing of the Barton Springs salamander are used in the PEER report as a case in point. The salamander, found only in Barton Springs in the City of Austin, Texas was endangered by encroaching development and deteriorating water quality in the opinion of USFWS biologist Lisa O'Donnell. She recemmended that it be listed as endangered. The report says O'Donnell was told that the USFWS was not going to take action and would let the state of Texas handle the salamander question.

"In order to avoid the legal obligation to list the species, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt stepped into the decision-making process and withdrew the proposed listing. To justify his action Secretary Babbitt entered into a Conservation Agreement with the State of Texas," the PEER report alleges.

A local environmental group, Save Our Springs, sued successfully to force listing of the Barton Springs salamander - listing that poses some problems for potential developers of the Barton Springs area. The U.S. District Court found that Babbitt's decision was "arbitrary and capricious," noting that the Secretary cannot use promises of proposed future actions as an excuse for not making a determination based on the existing record.

PEER's executive director Ruch thinks there is a strategy behind the Interior Secretary's actions. "Secretary Babbitt is blocking new listings and prolonging legal resistance to listing litigation in order to buy enough time to win legislative relief." In its report PEER argues that the Interior Secretary is coming down on the side of development rather than on the side of endangered species.

Meanwhile, in September the USFWS removed five species from the roster of candidates for listing as endangered or threatened. They had gone extinct while waiting.