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Tag: fish and wildlife service
Fish and wildlife Service, mussels

Trump Administration Killing Another Endangered Species

Reprinted with permission from DCReport


Trump's Fish and Wildlife Service has pushed an endangered freshwater mussel closer to extinction. The creature is threatened through efforts to placate an energy company where Attorney General Bill Barr was once on the board.

Dominion Energy and Duke Energy want to route the proposed 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline through Hackers Creek in West Virginia. That is the site of the endangered clubshell mussel. Trump's Fish and Wildlife Service authorized trying to rescue mussels which could be smothered by sediment from pipeline construction instead of rerouting the pipeline. Sixty-nine mussels were collected from the creek to be taken to the White Sulphur Springs National Fish Hatchery. Most of them died.

"The agency's obligation is to protect this species including this population, not hasten its end," said attorney Patrick Hunter. He represents the Southern Environmental Law Center.

Sixty-nine mussels were collected, and most of them died.

The clubshell mussel, listed as endangered in 1993, was once found throughout the Ohio River basin and tributaries of western Lake Erie. The mussels now appear to be limited to 11 populations in 19 streams. Many of those don't appear to be reproducing.

'Indicator Species'

Mussels such as the clubshell serve as an indicator species. They are much like the canaries that miners once carried to warn of possible suffocation dangers. When mussels die off, it means the streams aren't healthy enough to support them. Clubshell mussels are vulnerable to being suffocated by sediment that flows into streams from farming or construction.

Dominion once paid Barr $2.3 million in cash and stock awards as a board member. Duke and Dominion want to build the pipeline to carry natural gas from West Virginia to North Carolina. Plans for the pipeline include almost 12 miles of roads near Hackers Creek and 6.4 miles where pipeline could be laid.

The Fish and Wildlife Service, the agency that assesses the impact of pipelines on endangered species, is headed by Aurelia Skipwith. She is an attorney and former Monsanto employee who was confirmed by the Senate in December. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who has praised Trump's efforts to speed up approvals for pipelines, was one of three Democrats who voted for Skipwith.

Agency Saw No Impact

The Fish and Wildlife Service concluded in 2018 that the pipeline wouldn't jeopardize the survival and recovery of the clubshell and three other species: the rusty patched bumble bee; the Indiana bat, or the Madison Cave isopod.

Federal judges found that the Fish and Wildlife Service decided without legal authority that the clubshell population in Hackers Creek shouldn't be protected because it didn't appear to be reproducing. Judges also found flaws in the agency's analysis of the other species.

Supreme Court Case

The Endangered Species Act "is not focused exclusively on protecting those populations that currently are naturally reproductive," wrote Roger Gregory, the chief judge for the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.

In November, Dominion CEO Thomas Farrell told investors he expected to receive a new opinion from the Fish and Wildlife Service that would allow the company to resume construction on the pipeline. The Supreme Court recently heard arguments in a case focusing on another aspect of the pipeline, whether it can cross the Appalachian Trail.

Minutes from a meeting of federal regulators and employees from Dominion and Duke show that the Fish and Wildlife Service is once again considering authorizing the pipeline to cross the Hackers Creek watershed.

Trump Is Worst President For Endangered Species Since Reagan

Trump Is Worst President For Endangered Species Since Reagan

Reprinted with permission from DCReport.

The Trump administration listed fewer animals and plants as endangered or threatened in Trump’s first two years in office than any president since Ronald Reagan when the notorious anti-environmentalist James Watt presided over the Interior Department.

Under Trump, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have listed just 17 species as endangered or threatened, the worst record of protection in a president’s first two years since the Reagan administration protected a dozen species.

“We are in the midst of an extinction crisis, and there is an extensive backlog of imperiled species waiting for protection,” said Elise Bennett, an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity.

Species that got protection from the Trump administration include Guadalupe fescue, a rare grass found in Big Bend National Park in Texas that doesn’t pose a threat to industry, and ‘I’iwi, a scarlet bird found only on Hawaiian mountaintops that also doesn’t financially threaten industry.

The Trump administration rejected federal protection for more than 50 species such as the Pacific walrus which the Fish and Wildlife Service concluded wasn’t threatened by melting sea ice because they could rest on land.

Watt, who promised that “we will mine more, drill more, cut more timber,” prompted Congress to amend the Endangered Species Act because so few species were protected under his watch. The act has strict deadlines for deciding which species should be protected.

The Center for Biological Diversity recently sued the Trump administration and Interior Secretary David Bernhardt for violating those deadlines in failing to make decisions under the Endangered Species Act for about 24 species of animals and plants.

“Bernhardt and the Trump administration’s highest priorities are corporate profits,” said Noah Greenwald, the center’s endangered species director. “They’re not interested in protecting wildlife like the Franklin’s bumblebee and others that are on the brink of extinction.”

Since the Endangered Species Act was signed into law by former President Richard Nixon in 1973, at least 47 species have gone extinct while waiting for protection. In December, Margaret Everson, the principal deputy director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, rejected federal protection for the Ozark pyrg, a snail originally found in the White River near Cotter, Ark., because it is now extinct.

Bernhardt is trying to strip federal protections for gray wolves. He wrote the legal memo underpinning Republican efforts to weaken protections for gray wolves in 2008 under former President George W. Bush. Red wolves, once found across the eastern United States, are now perhaps the most endangered mammal on the planet, rarer than the world’s 2,300 Bengal tigers in the wild.

IMAGE: The Trump Administration refused to list the Pacific Walrus as endangered by melting sea ice. (Marine Mammal Commission)

Impact Of Proposed Crayfish Protections On Mining Industry Uncertain

Impact Of Proposed Crayfish Protections On Mining Industry Uncertain

By Sean Cockerham, McClatchy Washington Bureau (TNS)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing to list species of Appalachian crayfish as endangered, with potential consequences for the struggling eastern Kentucky mining industry.

The Fish and Wildlife Service said Monday that the Big Sandy crayfish, which lives in streams in Kentucky, West Virginia, and Virginia, is in danger of extinction. The agency is also proposing to list the Guyandotte River crayfish, found at a single site in Wyoming County, W.Va.

The proposed endangered listing follows a 2013 settlement agreement between the agency and the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group that sued to get protection for the crayfish, saying mountaintop removal coal mining was destroying its habitat.

“For decades coal companies have gotten away with polluting Appalachia’s water and killing its species, but it is time for the endangered species act to start being enforced in Appalachia,” Tierra Curry, a senior scientist for the Center for Biological Diversity, said Monday.

The Kentucky Coal Association, an industry trade group, referred questions to David Ledford, a biologist and president of the Appalachian Wildlife Foundation, which has worked with coal companies on environmental restoration of mining areas.

Ledford said he doesn’t think the proposed listing will have a large impact on Kentucky mining operations.

“It’s my opinion that at this point it’s not going to be that big a deal for the mining industry,” he said. “It’s generally way downstream from where the mines are.”

Mike Floyd, a federal wildlife biologist in Kentucky, said mining is just one factor in the decline of the crayfish, which live beneath loose boulders in streams and rivers. The crayfish are threatened by human activities that add silt and sediments to the streams, he said.

“That can come from a number of different sources. Mining would be one, but it could be anything,” Floyd said. “It could be road development, simple land development … All those sorts of things that come along when people are around.”

If the crayfish are listed as endangered, then federal agencies that issue permits for activities like mining and road construction would have to consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service about how to keep them from harm, Floyd said.

The Big Sandy crayfish is found in four isolated populations across the upper Big Sandy River watershed in Kentucky, West Virginia and Virginia, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service.

“There is quite a bit of mining going on in the Big Sandy drainage basin, which is where this would be, Pike and Floyd counties in Kentucky,” Floyd said.

The Fish and Wildlife Service is taking comments for 60 days on the proposed listing before making a final decision on listing the crayfish.

(c)2015 McClatchy Washington Bureau, Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

Photo credit: Zachary Loughman, West Liberty University, via Flickr