Posted on 12/19/2007 5:06:44 PM PST by NormsRevenge
SAN DIEGO – Environmental groups filed 13 lawsuits Wednesday against the Bush administration, alleging that it fails to protect imperiled species because of political meddling and other inadequacies.
Mentioned in the litigation were at least five species with current or former habitat in San Diego County: the spreading navarretia, thread-leaved brodiaea, San Diego ambrosia, red-legged frog and arroyo toad.
Dozens of related lawsuits are in the works, signaling a heightened battle with national implications for how the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service takes care of plants and animals close to extinction.
The agency already was reeling from investigations that found a top former official heavily reshaping scientific reports about endangered species.
Fighting the lawsuits will keep Fish and Wildlife officials embroiled in a costly controversy over how they set the boundaries for “critical habitat,” or land deemed essential to the survival of threatened and endangered plants and animals. The results will affect developers, farmers and several other groups, especially in areas like San Diego County that have numerous rare species.
Earthjustice and the Center for Biological Diversity filed the suits in federal district court because they said the Bush administration has improperly interfered in management decisions of the Fish and Wildlife Service. Specifically, the organizations said designations of “critical habitat” have been slashed without scientific justification.
“The red-legged frog, arroyo toad and golden sedge have evolved over millions of years. It is immoral to sacrifice them for political gain,” said Michael Senatore, senior counsel at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Federal scientists are doing their best to save endangered species, but are overruled at every turn by Bush administration bureaucrats.”
Fish and Wildlife Service officials declined to discuss the lawsuits.
Yep! Just knew these two (Earthjustice and the Center for Biological Diversity) twit groups were involved.
Holy Horse Manure!
Have they started making endangered lists for bacteria and viruses yet?
I wouldn’t call the federal government stopping environmental ripoffs of the American taxpayer as a failure. I call it a success against radical unchecked environmentalism.
I am sorry to inform you that most of these groups lawyer fees, on a lot of these lawsuits, are paid for by your tax dollars.
Thats right. They are compensated from the government. A little secret not known by most Americans.
I will let you do the research on it. Hint..just call any timber industry rep and talk to the proper person and they will inform you of the scandal.
The lyin’ goobers who planted Spotted Lynx fur in order to justify “habitat” claims were not fired when their fraud was discovered.
Gooberment scientists are similar to other agency goobers because:
1. They won’t work (lyin’ isn’t acceptable in the scientific community, nor is falsifying evidence.)
2. They can’t be fired. Please note that these ‘fake fur’ experts are still on their agency payroll.
It's obscene to say the least. Any attorney, acting as a self-annointed prosecutor for the environment on behalf of the unsuspecting public, can file any ridiculous allegation as a claim against a federal, state or local government agency and EVEN IF THE AGENCY SETTLES OUT OF COURT THE AGENCY IS FORCED TO PAY THE ATTORNEY'S FEES JUST BECAUSE HE/SHE FILED AN ALLEGATION!!!
Hey! It's a criminal racket and nobody's doing a damned thing about it!!! Any old allegation will work and that's why they should henceforth be known as "allegators!" (they're worse than ambulance chasers)
They do this as a fundraising tactic for the EnvironMental Group-Think outfit they've usually founded themselves. Arnold Schwartzenegger's EnvironMental Advisor is Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. head lawyer for the Natural Resources Defence Council, the outfit that sued the government into using M.T.B.E. as an oxygenate in gasoline in CA and poisoned the wells the City of South Lake Tahoe, CA depends of for potable water!!!
This is neither true environmentalism, nor a wise use of taxpayer funds, don't you all agree???
I can tell you what I did to re-establish navarettia species on our property (of which we have three): a combination of tilling and RoundUp. Tilling to bring up the seed, and RoundUp to kill competing grasses. As to the brodeaea, RoundUp again for the same reason: European grasses suppress germination of native plants. I don't know about the ambrosia or the toad, but the red-legged frog is more imperiled by bull frogs than anything else.
As usual, it isn't people that directly threaten these species as much as it's the exotics that they brought here, most of them long ago. Unless humans control the exotics, the natives are doomed. The worst thing would be to "preserve" the status quo, which is exactly what the enviros and agencies will demand.
Yup. The exotics really seem better adapted in many of these areas and out-compete the natives.
And we’re just going to get more of these exotic invasions into our country with “free trade.”
The single worst thing I can remember seeing up here in Nevada tho was the use of tall whitetop as Baby’s Breath in floral shops. Holy crap, you shoulda seen the dep’t of Ag weed people come unglued. ;-)
There's a whole chapter in my book about it.
Have you ever dealt with spiny cocklebur (Xanthium spinosum)? That's the weed from hell, especially if you ride a horse.
Yes, I’ve seen some of it about, usually in fallow areas. It usually won’t compete well in grass or alfalfa fields, but around the edges of a field, fencelines and roadsides where there is run off in sufficient quantity, I’ve seen it.
We usually use a tankmix of 2,4-D and Diuron to control it pretty well. Dicamba works well, but is more expensive.
MCPA should work as well I guess.
In one case where it did invade an established field, we used paraquat on it (and many other annuals) because 2,4-D and dicamba kill alfalfa dead. Paraquat just burns everything back; the perennials come back, the annuals don’t.
We consider it a royal pain because it will get into the fleece of sheep brought into the fields in the fall to graze off aftermath. Horse hay buyers want nothing to do with hay that has it.
No fun, even with gloves. We should plant it along the border.
BTW — in my quest for a less toxic “chemical flamethrower” herbicide (ie, like paraquat, only less toxic), I’ve been playing around with acetic acid (ie, vinegar).
Even plain white vinegar at 10% kills lots of plants dead as a wedge on contact.
I’ve been wondering whether a 20% glacial acetic acid solution would not be cost effective as a contact herbicide and safer than paraquat. For nuking the winter annual weeds up here, there’s nothing quite as effective as something that just burns off any exposed growth. The winter annuals are so much further along than the crop or natives, and crop or natives are invariably perennials, so burning off the well-progressed growth of winter annuals with a paraquat-like “chemical flamethrower” of an herbicide works really, really well.
Hand pulling that stuff? You’re truly committed.
We pulled 10+ bags of foxtail barley and Canadian thistles out of a 120-acre field this year that blew in from a neighbor who never does any pest control, weed or otherwise. Had me thinking about paying the spray plane to fly over his property with a 2-quart rate of glyphosate by the time we were done. Even with gloves, as you say, it was not any fun dealing with those thistles.
Interesting thought. I've heard of it before, but am far enough along in my restoration I can think of few opportunities to try it. I have been working with spot application of pre-emergence herbicides, notably Gallery and Surflan. We just flag the spot we're weeding the prior spring with a radius marked on the flag then hose it just before the first rain. If applied early enough, they can take out a year's worth of ruderal exotics (especially annual bluegrass and zorro) while not being quite so nasty to native annuals, many of which need cold stratification to germinate anyway. I've done a few tests where I put in sedge plugs and hosed the area with no problem and vice versa. It is nasty to the native clovers though, but if only for a few years, I can use up much of the weed bank and the clovers will still be there.
I'm basically done with ripgut, foxtails, most thistles, etc. My challenges are four-leaved allseed, wall bedstraw, and hedge parsley (the latter are brought in by animals no matter what I do). The problem is that there have been so many successive waves of weeds over the decades that because each has a unique allelopathic chemistry the battle is something like peeling an onion.
We are working with the Forest Service on a proposed fuel reduction effort in a Late Successional Reserve for northern spotted owls. It is already apparent that “owl activity areas” conflict with areas identified as in need of agressive fuel reduction in order to protect the safety of human beings, private property and some extremely valuable California Historic landmarks (like the first Catholic church ever built in northern California.)
As the County, our jurisdiction is the protection of public health and safety. We have already declared the National Forest a public nuisance for fuel conditions and have ordered abatement. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
I agree. Not a wise use of taxpayer funds, nor is it true environmentalism.
Geez Waspman, I kinda agree with little Mikey on this one.
Wull... little Mikey likes 'em, plenty mucho, Senor!!! (let's hear it fer little Mikey)
Was that in the artickle I never read???
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