Water project not a risk to rare bird, agency says
Posted on Friday, August 3, 2007
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/197513/
A project that would pump water from the White River to rice fields in eastern Arkansas will not endanger the elusive ivory-billed woodpecker, U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials concluded in a review ordered by a federal judge.
The wildlife agency worked with the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers to survey sites within a mile of a pumping-station construction site scouring the skies and forests for signs of the bird.
In a July 26 letter to the Corps, Mark Sattelberg, field supervisor of the Fish and Wildlife Service office in Conway, concluded that the project “is not likely to adversely affect the ivory-billed woodpecker.”
In July 2006, U. S. District Judge Bill Wilson Jr. halted work on the now-nearly $ 400 million Grand Prairie Irrigation project in eastern Arkansas. The Grand Prairie Irrigation project’s pumping station is near DeValls Bluff, less than 20 miles from where the bird had reportedly been seen and filmed.
The Fish and Wildlife Service letter and the biological-assessment study done by the agencies will be submitted to Wilson within 60 days and further hearings could be ordered. If the court rules in favor of the Corps, the stalled project — which the Corps contends will protect aquifers crucial to farmers and residents in the region — could resume.
In 2005, the U. S. Department of Interior announced that the bird had been rediscovered in the Big Woods of eastern Arkansas after having been presumed extinct for 60 years.
Shortly after the announcement, the Corps concluded that the irrigation project wasn’t likely to harm the woodpecker’s habitat, prompting a lawsuit by the National Wildlife Federation and the Arkansas Wildlife Federation.
As part of that lawsuit, Wilson ordered a more thorough assessment of the project’s effect on the ivory-billed woodpecker, which was reportedly rediscovered in the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge north of Stuttgart.
Wilson wanted the Corps of Engineers and the Fish and Wildlife Service to examine the potential effect on the bird’s nesting, roosting and active-foraging habitats within 2. 5 miles of any construction. Wilson also ordered the agencies to inspect for signs of the bird’s activities “in all trees 12 inches or greater in areas that will be most affected by changes in water level.” He also ordered nesting, roosting and foraging surveys “in the forest areas adjacent to canals and pipelines.”
On Thursday, Sattelberg said that the wildlife service worked with the agency to train Corps employees to look for roost holes.
But, instead of covering 2. 5 miles, the service went one mile out from the construction site. “Studies have shown they wouldn’t go far,” Sattelberg said of the larger area requested by Wilson.
He said that he hopes the service’s explanation of the bird’s habits will show the judge that the agencies’ work was thorough.
“What we’re hoping is, when the judge sees the justification in the letter, he’ll agree with it,” Sattleberg said.
The two agencies are also looking at water levels and taking into account the types of trees found in a given area when conducting their surveys to ensure that the bird’s habitat is protected.
“They’ll have to monitor the areas to make sure there are no ivory-billeds,” Sattelberg said. “Through all the investigations, they’ve not found evidence [of the woodpecker. ]”
Sattelberg said such work “started even before the lawsuit.”
“We’ve been working on it from the beginning. The lawsuit just sort of pushed it along,” he said.
David Carruth, president of the Arkansas Wildlife Federation, said Thursday that he had no problems with the methodology employed by the two agencies but added that not enough territory was covered. “My take on what I’ve read is they are far, far short of what Judge Wilson intended them to do,” Carruth said. “Even though the pump is going to be physically at DeValls Bluff, the impact zone will be as far south as St. Charles,” Carruth said. “There’s no question that there’s going to be impacts further south. The question is how far south.”
Construction on the project was halted a week or so before the judge’s July 20, 2006, order because federal funding ran out. The project’s cost was estimated at $ 319 million when it was stopped last year.
Bob Anderson, a spokesman for the Corps’ Memphis district, said that the agency hopes to get federal funding restarted in 2008, assuming the biological assessment is approved by Wilson and the injunction is lifted.
It’s unclear when construction could resume, Anderson said. “There’s really not any kind of schedule now. We’ve got to wait to get cleared to begin again.”
Observed Anderson: “The longer the project is delayed the more the price will rise.”
The irrigation project was first authorized in 1950 and rescinded by Congress in 1986 before being re-authorized a decade later. Litigation and jurisdictional battles have caused delays in the on-again, off-again project.
Debate over the ivory-billed’s existence has continued to swirl — the main evidence involves a blurry video and disputed sound recordings.
Last month an article called “Giving up the Ghost” said that the exhaustive search by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology should have uncovered signs of an ivory-billed — if there was one to be found. Some prominent ornithologists have also questioned the rediscovery.