WP: Ivory-Billed Woodpecker Advocates Challenge Corps of Engineers

[DeepModem Mom]

Bird's Advocates Challenge Corps
Water Projects Called Threat to Woodpecker Once Thought Extinct
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 8, 2005; Page A02


A group of environmentalists is trying to block construction of two federal water projects in Arkansas, arguing they could damage the habitat of the highly endangered ivory-billed woodpecker.

The controversy highlights how this year's rediscovery of the distinctive bird could complicate federal initiatives in the area. For years many federal officials and wildlife experts believed the woodpecker was extinct; now they are faced with the question of how to cope with its existence on land used by farmers, shippers and area residents.

After an initial wave of celebration, conservation groups -- which say that the only reason the woodpecker survived this long is because the federal government abandoned a navigation project along Arkansas' Cache River in the 1970s -- say administration officials are risking driving the bird to extinction once again.

Today the National Wildlife Federation and the Arkansas Wildlife Federation are filing a lawsuit in federal district court in Little Rock, challenging the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' plans to spend $319 million to take water from the White River and give it to farmers. The Environmental Defense Fund, another advocacy group, plans to issue a policy report soon blasting a nearby Corps transportation project on the White River.

"We are asking the court to stop the rush to judgment by federal agencies more determined to build the irrigation project than to consider the damage it will do to the bottomland hardwood forests where the ivory-bill was found," said David Carruth, president of the Arkansas Wildlife Federation. "The ivory-billed woodpecker reminds us that is a very special region. Protecting it means protecting an irreplaceable part of our country's wildlife heritage for future generations."...


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/07/AR2005090702100.html

[Trillo]

1. Aren't most farms corporate these days? nt