For Members and Friends May 1999

Offices will be located at 20 Battery Park Avenue, Suite 405 in Asheville, 28801. Phone numbers and e-mail will be announced once the office opens.

WildLaw continues to explore funding possibilities for opening offices in Georgia and the Ohio Valley. Because the need for environmental legal help is so great in the South (and everywhere else) and growing every day and since WildLaw is the only organization rising to meet that need, we are committed to doing everything possible to bring such expertise to the grassroots and regional organizations that need it.

On behalf of Wild Alabama, WildLaw sued the National Park Service (NPS) over road maintenance activities at Little River Canyon Preserve that had killed endangered Green Pitcher Plants and caused sedimentation of Little River itself. The NPS has agreed to close the road near the Pitcher Plant Bog to prevent any further access by poachers and to prevent any future "accidents" during road maintenance. They also agreed to look into ways to enhance the bog and reestablish it back to its original extent before the road. The NPS also agreed to undertake an extensive series of road rehabilitation and sediment control actions along the road polluting Little River.
 

On behalf of Wild South, WildLaw appealed the Analysis Unit 17 timber sale in the Bienville National Forest in Mississippi. This sale proposed to clearcut 300 acres and thin another 278 acres. In response to our appeal and a meeting with WildLaw staff attorney Leigh Haynie, Ranger Sue Kozacek withdrew the sale with plans to re-propose it later after more analysis on cumulative effects and development of better data on management indicator species. Ranger Kozacek also plans to address the appropriateness of even-aged management and plans to give more consideration to uneven-aged management methods.

On March 17, Regional Forester Elizabeth Estill reversed District Ranger James Ramey's decision to clearcut in Compartment 150 in the Bankhead National Forest in Alabama. This win is the second time Wild Alabama and WildLaw have stopped this proposed cutting of 305 acres and the construction of 1.4 miles of new road. WildLaw had appealed the sale on a number of grounds, but Ms. Estill did not address any of our issues and reversed the sale on the basis of the agency's ongoing review of NEPA implementation on all districts of the National Forests in Alabama. She stated, "I have chosen to reverse this decision to allow the Deciding Official additional time to review the decision again and make any changes that may be necessary."

In a lawsuit that has been going on since 1995, WildLaw and its clients the Biodiversity Legal Foundation and Ned Mudd settled our suit against Bruce Babbitt and the Fish and Wildlife Service for their failure to list the Alabama Sturgeon under the Endangered Species Act. In 1994, Sec. Babbitt refused to protect the fish, declaring it "extinct." Since then, six more have been captured. In response to negotiations during the course of our lawsuit, the FWS put the Sturgeon back on the candidate species list, and in March 1999, they agreed to again propose the species for listing as endangered.

The judge in the case knew nothing about administrative or environmental law, and she is renown for her ineptitude (she even lost the administrative record in this case). She had told us she would rule on the case in March 1997, but more than two years later, she still had not ruled, and in fact, had recently asked us to reargue the case as she had forgotten everything about it. Faced with that level of judicial incompetence and lack of professional concern, we decided that going through the listing process once more was the preferable route to achieving protection for the Sturgeon. Thus, based on the FWS's new listing proposal, we settled the case.

According to our sources, on Easter Sunday, the sole female Alabama Sturgeon in captivity at a State of Alabama fish hatchery died from an infection contracted after a failed attempt to breed her. This death and the failed breeding attempt were part of the so-called "conservation agreement" endorsed by the Mobile River Basin Coalition for breeding the sturgeon and avoiding protection of it under federal law.

Apparently, the Administration of Alabama Governor Don Siegelman decided not to release this information to the public or to parties who have worked for years on conservation of the Alabama Sturgeon, such as the BLF, the Friends of the Alabama Sturgeon and WildLaw. Almost three weeks after the fish's death, we learned of this tragedy from confidential sources.

Although the State personnel working directly with the captive Sturgeons have been as concerned and professional as possible, this incident raises serious questions about the State's ability to engage in an effective captive breeding program, especially since the State has never done anything like this before. It also brings into issue whether the so-called "conservation agreement" to "conserve" the Sturgeon is doing anything other than killing them off one-by-one. This is not the first Sturgeon to die in the hands of the State. Thus, the need to list the Alabama Sturgeon as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act and give it the full protection of the law has never been more apparent.

The Alabama Sturgeon is the most imperiled unprotected fish species in North America. These failures emphasize the need to engage in real recovery efforts such as habitat protection and a breeding program run by people familiar with sturgeons, instead of wasting hundreds-of-thousands of tax dollars solely on a "breeding program through trial and error" designed more to avoid the requirements of federal law than to help the species. Currently, the FWS has re-proposed the Sturgeon for listing as an endangered species. This incident highlights the obvious need for that federal protection. The comment period on the proposed listing extends through May 26. Comments may be sent to: Field Supervisor, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 6578 Dogwood View Parkway, Jackson, Mississippi 39213.

The FWS also caught another Sturgeon recently, and that fish is of undetermined gender at this time. After spending hundreds-of-thousands of taxpayer dollars to catch and breed Alabama Sturgeons, the results have been four fish caught, one of those fish killed and a complete failure in attempts to breed them. It appears that experts in sturgeon handling and breeding from other parts of the country are not being actively consulted for this work on the Alabama Sturgeon until after failures like these occur.

Since the FWS and the State are apparently being secretive on all these events, WildLaw is investigating and calling for information to develop the details.

In other Sturgeon news, U.S. Senator Richard Shelby tried to get a special rider attached to the Kosovo appropriations bill to prevent the FWS from ever listing the Sturgeon. In response to the FWS's agreement not to decide on whether to list the Sturgeon until at least March 2000, Shelby dropped the rider and has started plans to introduce an individual bill to order the FWS never to protect the Alabama Sturgeon.

With trial in our case over Alabama's concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) regulations slated for June 21-23, the state's entire animal industry has intervened in the case. ALFA (Ala. Farmers Federation, formerly the Ala. Farm Bureau) and associations representing cattle, hog and chicken factories and their equipment suppliers have entered the case in support of the regulations, claiming that making Alabama's regulations as strong as other states' would be unfair. They have hired the most expensive "environmental" lawyers in the state (Balch & Bingham) to fight against protecting our waterways and ground water.

All the professors of animal agriculture in the state have agreed to testify for ALFA in order to maintain their grants, and although we have a couple of experts testifying for us, our resources are no match for the industry's. Still, WildLaw and our client Wild Alabama are the only groups taking legal action in Alabama to fight against the massive pollution from CAFOs here, and we intend to fight as best we can despite the long odds.

As part of the program of legislative work done by the Alabama League of Environmental Action Voters (AL-LEAVs), the Alabama Wilderness Alliance announced that a bill to designate certain state-owned lands as wilderness was introduced by Representative Jack Page. House Bill 649 was assigned to the House State Government Committee, and it passed out of that committee on April 28. Because the State Department of Conservation and Natural Resources has done a great job of maintaining these wild lands, this legislation is needed so that these special places will receive permanent protection and the kind of promotion that will showcase Alabama to the nation.

If passed, this legislation would give Alabama the only state wilderness system in the southeastern United States and would make Alabama one of only a handful of states with state-land wilderness areas. Research by the United States Forest Service shows that a canoeist, for example, pumps an average of $126 per day into the local economy when they travel to and recreate in a wilderness area. The largest of the four areas designated in the bill is the 16,000-acre Tensaw Wilderness in the W.L. Holland Wildlife Management Area in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta near Mobile and is a great area for canoeing. The other areas are 5,000 acres in Oak Mountain State Park, 1,000 acres in Cheaha State Park and 1,000 acres in Gulf State Park.

As stated by Ray Vaughan, the author of the bill, "The label 'wilderness' is the key word that gets the attention of people who canoe, backpack and hike. Wilderness designation will give these areas the permanent protection and recognition they deserve. Having the only state wilderness system in the southeast would give Alabama a significant advantage for bringing in tourists interested in recreating in wild areas. It would also promote the state and show that Alabama is moving ahead in the environment. This is an exciting piece of legislation that has the potential to make Alabama look great and be an economic boon to our parks and the communities around them."

State Senator Roger Bedford introduced the wilderness bill in the Senate.

State Representative Sue Schmitz introduced into the Alabama House of Representatives a bill to require Alabama state agencies to consider the environmental consequences of their proposed actions for the first time. The bill is H. 727, and it was also assigned to the State Government Committee. Modeled after the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which has required federal agencies to identify and consider environmental impacts of proposals since 1970, this bill will require Alabama state agencies to do a similar task. Currently, Alabama agencies do not have to consider the environmental impacts of their permits, regulations, road construction projects, dams, logging, building or anything else. They also do not have to inform the public of these projects and their impacts. Current law does require the agencies to consider the economic impacts of any proposal, and this bill will merely put consideration of environmental impacts on an equal level with that of economic ones. Although the tasks required by this bill will cause agencies to incur some increased up-front expenses to do this consideration, the long-term costs to the public from ill-conceived projects will be drastically reduced, and federal agencies have had little trouble complying with NEPA for almost 30 years now.

According to Ray Vaughan, the author of the bill, "Nothing is more expensive than ignorance, and with Alabama's environment being the most beautiful and diverse in the nation, having state agencies degrade our lands, water, air and wildlife through ignorance is something we should not tolerate. This bill will give state government and the public the tools to make wise decisions for Alabama's future."

You can now help fund WildLaw and our actions to protect public lands, wildlife and natural resources by shopping at Amazon.com and eToys. When you link from WildLaw's Web site to these companies, they will give a percentage of your purchase to WildLaw. All you have to do is go to WildLaw's Web page first at www.wildlaw.org and then link to the stores from the icons at the bottom of our home page. Each time you shop at these stores, you need to link to them from WildLaw's home page in order for them to know that you want part of your purchase given to WildLaw. Amazon.com will give 5% of your purchase and eToys will give 25%. Thank you.

On Tax Day, April 15, WildLaw became the first non-profit environmental law firm to put its Forms 990 on the Web for anyone to see. Form 990 is the tax form for non-profit organizations to file with the IRS each year to set out where their money came from and what they did with it. As far as we know, WildLaw is the first non-profit environmental law firm, indeed perhaps the first environmental group of any kind, to place its Forms 990 on the Web. In the spirit of openness among non-profits, those who fund them and those who receive their services, we hope this will be an example soon followed by many similar groups.

WildLaw's Forms 990 are available in Adobe Acrobat PDF format. You must have Adobe Acrobat Reader (a free download from Adobe) to view these documents, but you can see them exactly like they were filed with the IRS. What you get is the first page (the overall summary page) of the Form 990; it will give you a general breakdown of where WildLaw's money came from and what we did with it. To save space and download time (the first page alone is 98K), we do not include the entire form, as most of it are lines and areas left blank because those parts do not apply to WildLaw. However, if you want more detail, WildLaw will mail you our entire Form 990 upon request. WildLaw takes its responsibility to maximize every dollar donated to it very seriously, and we are proud to display our tax forms to show that we truly are efficient and effective with what is given to us.

To access the Forms 990, go to WildLaw's Web site and click on the "Information on WildLaw" link.

www.wildlaw.org

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