Action Alerts!

Northern Rockies Wolf

On October 28, 2008, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS, Service) reopened the public comment period on its 2007 proposal to delist the endangered Northern Rocky Mountain population of gray wolves protected by Endangered Species Act (ESA). In the waning days of the anti-environment Bush administration, this end-run rush of a plan that was found inadequate in court and that the USFWS asked to withdraw is obviously politically and not scientifically motivated. Moreover, this 2008 Delisting Proposed Rule excludes Wyoming wolves from delisting as state management plans there have consistently proven insufficient to maintain minimal wolf numbers and breeding success. The Service delisted wolves in the region on March 28, 2008, approximately twelve years after it reintroduced them as a “nonessential experimental population” under the ESA. Judge Donald Molloy of the U.S. District Court in Missoula, Montana, issued a preliminary injunction of the final delisting rule on July 18, 2008, that immediately reinstated ESA restrictions on hunting and killing wolves in the Northern Rockies. On September 22, 2008, the Service requested that the court vacate and remand the rule back to the USFWS, which the court granted on October 14, 2008.

Thanks to the injunction secured by twelve conservation organizations including Friends of the Clearwater, the management of gray wolves in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, the eastern one-third of Oregon and Washington, and north-central Utah is currently governed by the same ESA protections that were in effect before wolves were delisted. Because a federal court defeated the Service’s first delisting attempt in the Northern Rockies, the USFWS is seeking public comments and additional new information pertinent to their second, unchanged proposal that could become law without your input. Specifically, USFWS would like concerned citizens to address the issues raised by district court rulings in Missoula and Washington, D.C. In response to the Service’s contention that Northern Rockies gray wolves had exceeded minimum recovery goals of 30 breeding pairs and at least 300 wolves for three consecutive years in every year since 2002, the Montana federal judge agreed with conservationists’ claims that: 1) the wolves had not met recovery criteria due to a lack of genetic exchange between their central Idaho, northwestern Montana, and Yellowstone populations; 2) Wyoming’s 2007 management framework was an inadequate regulatory mechanism; and 3) fall 2008 public wolf hunting seasons planned by Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming posed immediate potential harm for wolves. On September 29, 2008, the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. reinstated ESA threatened status for Western Great Lakes gray wolves delisted in early 2007. The federal court ruled that withdrawing protection for gray wolves in one region, without considering their recovery nationwide, violates the purpose of the ESA. Although wolf populations in the Great Lakes area have increased, the species is not present in most of its historic range including the northeastern United States, southern Rocky Mountains, Great Basin, and Pacific Coast.

Please include these points that USFWS have asked respondents to address in your comments:

1) The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service should revise its recovery goals for Northern Rockies gray wolves to assure that genetic exchange via natural wolf migration occurs between the three sub-populations. Transportation of wolves between populations by wildlife managers does not constitute recovery as specified by the Endangered Species Act. Moreover, management programs proposed by Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming wildlife officials for wolves after delisting would allow public hunting and state agent killing of nearly 1,000 wolves – two-thirds of the present regional population – during a current wolf population decline. These strategies, if successful, would skew wolf pack dynamics and predator/prey relationships and deter the normal wolf dispersal and expansion into available habitats that fosters a connected, sustainable, regional meta-population.

2) USFWS should include additional regulations in a revised delisting plan that would ensure genetic exchange and ultimate genetic diversity among wolf populations in the region. The actions outlined in the draft Memorandum of Understanding between state and federal wildlife agencies, titled Maintenance and Enhancement of Gray Wolf Recovery in the Northern Rocky Mountains, are vague and provide no standards for wolf migration objectives and monitoring. Establishment of protected wildlife corridors, where killing wolves is illegal, is essential to facilitating gene flow between gray wolf packs in the Northern Rockies and, as the ESA would warrant, beyond the region toward eventual re-establishment of the historic range of wolves.

3) The existing state management plans and wildlife regulations for gray wolves in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming undermine the long-term viability of Northern Rockies gray wolf populations. The 1,500 wolves in the region represent fewer individuals than independent scientists have determined necessary to maintain the species’ long-term health and survival. Each state should strive for far more than the 15 breeding pairs and 150 wolves in mid-winter mandated by the proposed delisting rule. This delisting plan encourages the states – that have proven willing to oblige – to maintain minimally low wolf numbers that endanger wolf genetic variability and promote hunter and state agent reductions of tenuously re-established wolf populations.

4) The Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming wolf and ungulate hunting regulations and agency killing of wolves that prey on livestock or supposedly diminish elk and deer numbers present conflicts of interest for the state wildlife departments charged with oversight of gray wolves if they are removed from the federal threatened and endangered species list. These contradictory objectives compromise each state’s commitment and ability to manage wolves at biologically sustainable levels. State management programs that allow more wolf mortality than federal ESA provisions resulted in well over 100 documented wolf deaths and additional unreported fatalities in 2008 – an increase over previous years – especially in Wyoming, where 88 percent of the state was classified as a predator zone sanctioning uncontrolled wolf hunting.

5) As evident in the legislative history, policy objectives, language, and judicial interpretations of the Endangered Species Act, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is remiss in its implementation of the act concerning distinct population segments (DPS). More significantly, its designations of gray wolves in the Northern Rockies and elsewhere as DPSs within their broader, pre-existing listing as endangered throughout the lower 48 states ignores the intent of the ESA to restore species populations to biologically functional conditions. Because individuals from naturally occurring populations in Canada and Northwestern Montana have migrated to and infiltrated packs throughout the region both before and after reintroduction, Northern Rockies wolves deserve full ESA protection and neither their nonessential experimental nor DPS designations.

6) Many of the elements and particularly the process of the current delisting proposal are severely flawed, as apparent in Judge Molloy’s rejection of a similar scheme, and cannot withstand the scrutiny of inevitable policy analyses and legal challenges. Following two recent, failed attempts to remove ESA protections for wolves, USFWS has only slightly modified and hurried this deficient delisting proposal out for public comment instead of resolving any of the original plan problems. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service should substantially revise its wolf recovery plan and guide development of scientifically-based state wolf management plans that balance the concerns of all stakeholders and that: 1) halt current wolf population declines, 2) increase the regional population to at least 2,000 to 3,000 wolves, 3) ensure natural genetic exchange between sub-populations, and 4) clearly articulate state and citizen accountability measures that prevent human-caused wolf deaths after delisting.

You likely know many more reasons why gray wolves in our region should not be delisted now: please voice these concerns, no matter how intuitive they may seem. Join Friends of the Clearwater in commenting against this hasty, premature, malevolent, second attempt to delist Northern Rockies gray wolves. As in all public comments, include not only rational arguments for better wolf management but also personal reasons for protecting wolves in your message. To boost the effectiveness of your input, explain where you live and how this affects your perspective, why you care about the future of wolves, and how your specific experiences, education, or expertise inform your opinion. Although the Service is discouraging people who have previously commented from participating again, please get involved in this important decision! Respond by November 28, 2008, to this misguided proposal that would again subject wolves to the deadly plans of state wildlife departments, hunters, and anti-wolf reactionaries. Hundreds of wolves were killed during the few months of the last delisting transition.

USFWS is not accepting e-mails or faxes and will include any personal information that you provide (name, address, and other contact identifiers) on its comment website. Post your comments online at:

The Cottonwood Field Office of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) recently re-opened the public comment scoping period for a proposed gold mine three miles northwest of Elk City, Idaho. Its cyanide heap leach mining process has already been banned by Montana citizens. Site specific, project level effects of the potential mining operation have not yet been released in an upcoming draft environmental impact statement. However, according to a 1990 Environmental Assessment referenced by the BLM, a new, cyanide heap leach mine would cover several hundred acres of BLM lands among its scattered holdings in the South Fork watershed.

Both Buffalo Gulch and the South Fork Clearwater River are listed as impaired 303(d) streams under the Clean Water Act, which prohibits the BLM from permitting any activity that may violate water quality standards. No new, point source discharges can affect any of the parameters associated with 303(d) water bodies. Idaho laws and federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations also require that no further degradation occur in either of these drainages.

The use of cyanide at the proposed mine raises further concerns. Air quality may be compromised by cyanide off-gassing and wind-borne waste material. Trucks carrying cyanide waste along hazardous, access highways, Idaho 12, 13, and 14, present great spill risks to the South Fork tributary and the entire Clearwater River system. Two toxic spills into the Lochsa and Middle Fork Clearwater rivers have already recently occurred. Emanating from either the mine or associated transportation, cyanide leachate contamination would devastate the watershed.

The South Fork Clearwater River cannot afford a resurgence of incredibly degrading heavy metal mining. The effects of past mining still haunt the impaired river, home to threatened bull trout, Chinook salmon, and steelhead. Species of great concern, such as Pacific lamprey and Westslope cutthroat trout, also occur in this area that cumulatively affects other downstream, listed, fish species. Besides the mine site itself posing hazards to wildlife, if cyanide leaked into a stream, it would additionally impact other aquatic and terrestrial wildlife. Endangered Species Act protections must be enforced at Buffalo Gulch, even if they deny 1872 Mining Law privileges.

This project could also negatively affect treaty rights and public recreation, especially if a cyanide spill or leak occurred, as fishing in the South Fork Clearwater River is important both culturally and economically. Since the completion of Dworshak Dam, which blocks native fish migrations between the Pacific Ocean and North Fork Clearwater River, the South Fork has gained added significance as a rare, local, anadromous fishery.

Beyond mining, the ailing South Fork Clearwater River has been under heavy assault over the last several years. Several, large, timber sales, including the Crooked American and Eastside Township projects, are currently planned and/or approved for the upper South Fork drainage. Moreover, the Buffalo Gulch claim holding is far larger than the proposed mine area, which could be expanded in the future. The cumulative impacts of all these destructive, extractive endeavors must be addressed by concerned citizens through public comments and considered by the appropriate agencies.

Please contact the BLM with your concerns about the environmental impacts of this project on 170 acres of YOUR public lands, including these potential problems:

* Located on a ridge above Buffalo Gulch and the South Fork, the mine could release sediment and toxic chemicals into these impaired 303(d) streams and thus violate state and federal water quality regulations. Many local residents depend on springs and wells that drain the ridge for their drinking water. Westslope cutthroat trout, Pacific lamprey, and threatened bull trout, Chinook salmon, and steelhead inhabit area waters.

* Transportation, use, and storage of five million pounds of sodium cyanide during 24-hour, year-round mine operation at 4,500 feet elevation over five years pose significant probabilities of leaks, spills, accidents, and terrorism at the project area and along narrow, winding, access roads perched along rivers. Only chain link fences and earthen berms would separate the mine site from avian and terrestrial wildlife and interlopers.

* Other detrimental effects of the mine include possible project expansion into its larger claim holding, compromised air quality from cyanide off-gassing and wind-borne waste rock material, reduction of American River in-stream flow for native, aquatic species by mine water use, diminished opportunities for public recreation, exercise of hunting, fishing, and gathering treaty rights, and associated economic and cultural benefits, and the cumulative mine impacts on a watershed degraded by profuse mining and logging.

Please visit the BLM website,

In 2001, residents of the Deary/Bovill, Idaho area successfully challenged development of a clay mine proposed for the upper reaches of the Moose Creek drainage. The Idaho Department of Lands in 2004 issued the Canadian company i-minerals ten mineral leases that authorize it to construct and operate a large, open-pit mine on 4,649 acres of state lands in eastern Latah County. Starting in October 2008, the company plans to mine for feldspar, quartz, and clay and is also leasing private property for this purpose. The supposedly relatively pure minerals derived from the proposed mine site could be used to manufacture brick, ceramics, glass, paint, and tile. According to company spokespersons, extracting the huge deposit of feldspar and running a nearby processing plant could create 30 to 50 jobs and provide an economic boost to the region over the 20-year life of the mine.

On August 7, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers notified the public of an i-minerals application for a 20-year permit to discharge excavated material into13.78 acres of wetlands and 3,658 linear feet of streams during construction of the mine, water diversion structures, a mineral processing and tailings disposal facility, and a three-mile-long haul road near Moose Creek reservoir. During the permit process, the Corps must consider and evaluate the potential environmental effects of the proposed mining project. They are required by the Endangered Species Act to consult scientists with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service to determine possible impacts on local wildlife and fish and must also defer to federal Clean Water Act regulations. This permit review includes a 30-day public comment period until September 6, 2008, during which Friends of the Clearwater is requesting a public hearing for concerned citizens.

Located among the evergreen forests and open meadows of the Clearwater Mountain foothills above the Palouse prairie, several problems could arise from this potential mine as described in the Corps application:
* The mining project straddles and occupies wetlands in Moose Meadows and tributaries of Moose Creek, which contains important steelhead habitat downstream from the Moose Creek Dam. Damaging aquatic systems upstream compromises stream productivity, dislocates essential aquatic organisms, and may induce declines of steelhead populations.
* Moose Creek and nearby reaches of the Potlatch River, into which it flows, are already water-quality limited streams, due in part to closely proximate, past and current logging, livestock grazing, damming, and mining activities in the surrounding watershed.
* Discharging material excavated from an open-pit mine results in acid-mine drainage and high sediment delivery potential to wetlands and streams in the area already suffering from poor water quality.
* Forest Service personnel have observed lynx in the area, which are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Construction of this mine and accompanying facilities would adversely modify or destroy potential critical habitat for lynx.
* Located only a mile west of Bovill, Idaho and less than a mile away from the Moose Creek Reservoir, construction and operation of the proposed mine facilities would detrimentally affect air quality, noise levels, recreation opportunities (especially primary contact water recreation), and aesthetic enjoyment of the area’s natural attributes.
* i-minerals officials have not devised and submitted mitigation plans for post-operational reclamation of the open pit and damages caused by fill discharge and stream diversion. Long-term effects on area water quality cannot be proficiently evaluated without this information.
* Destroying the water purification values of wetlands by removing the clay deposits underlying their function cannot be offset and compensated for by company purchases of wetland bank credits or funding and/or implementation of watershed/wetland/floodplain restoration projects elsewhere. If the project is approved, full restoration of wetlands and stream channels in the project area is crucial to ecosystem integrity already degraded by other resource uses.

For these and your own reasons, please ask the Army Corps of Engineers to deny the permit to i-minerals requested through application number 2006-640-CO1. Mail your comments so that they are received by September 6 to:
Mr. Michael Doherty, Regulatory Project Manager
Coeur d’Alene Idaho Regulatory Field Office
C/o the Idaho Panhandle National Forests
3815 Schreiber Way, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho 83815

To review the diagram-rich i-minerals application to the Corps of Engineers for a waterway impact permit, visit:

On August 15, 2008, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) proposed significant changes in Endangered Species Act (ESA) regulations mandating interagency cooperation. The ESA requires every federal agency to ensure that any action it authorizes, funds, or implements on the land or sea does not jeopardize the continued existence of threatened or endangered species or adversely modify or destroy their designated critical habitats. The target of this most recent attempt by the Bush administration to weaken ESA protections for imperiled plants and animals, Section 7 of the act governs how and when federal agencies must consult FWS and NMFS scientists to determine whether their proposed actions are likely to affect any of the 1,353 species listed under the ESA. As informal conversations between the involved agencies or formal, written requests, such consultations provide some of the most valuable and powerful means to conserve listed species facing extinction.

The draft rule changes submitted by the Secretaries of the Interior and Commerce Departments, who respectively supervise FWS and NMFS endeavors, largely circumvent this interagency review process to ease the execution of development projects, such as dam, highway, and building construction or filling wetlands, mining, and logging. Without congressional approval but subject to a 30-day public comment period, the revisions of the ESA’s Section 7 would effectively give federal agencies the authority to decide, without specialist consultation, whether their own projects would harm protected wildlife or habitats. Agencies that surmise no such adverse impacts would accept all liability for resulting damages, while agency actions that could cause harm to listed species would still require consultation. According to the Interior Department, these ESA changes reflect current practices and recent court cases and are designed to ease agency understanding of regulation applications and reduce unnecessary consultations to allow better protection of the most vulnerable species.

If approved, this largest overhaul of the Endangered Species Act since 1988 would limit the exhaustive procedural requirements that developers, landowners, and federal, state, and local governments blame for project delays and cost increases. Interagency endangered species consultations can take months or years to complete; government wildlife experts routinely perform tens of thousands of such reviews each year. Dale Hall, FWS director, asserts that, “the purpose of these changes is to reduce ambiguity, improve consistency, and narrow interpretive differences” by replacing vague definitions, explaining when formal consultation is applicable, and improving the informal consultation process. Hall claims that state and federal agency employees have gained sufficient expertise in ESA protocol over the last twenty years to be capable of making final decisions on permits without pursuing consultation “in situations where the potential effects to a species are either unlikely, incapable of being meaningfully evaluated, wholly beneficial, or pose only a remote risk of causing jeopardy to the species or its habitat.”

The current administration attempted broader ESA changes in an internal draft plan that it aborted last year after it drew press attention, Democratic protests, and threats to eliminate funding. In 2003, new regulations would have allowed agencies to shift consultation on pesticide approvals to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and sidestep government endangered species advice on wildfire risk reduction projects. A federal judge overturned the pesticide rule two years ago, and conservationists are currently suing the Interior Department and the Forest Service over the wildfire prevention rule. Republican legislative efforts to rewrite the Endangered Species Act have been mired in controversy and deadlocked for years. In 2005, the House passed similar ESA changes, but the bill died in the Senate. Many judicial decisions have similarly addressed Section 7. As in other successful lawsuits challenging previous federal attempts to diminish ESA oversight, conservationists last spring convinced the Federal Emergency Management Agency to consult with biologists on the effects of flood insurance policies on Florida’s Key deer.

The new, proposed regulations would also prohibit federal agencies from assessing the greenhouse gas emissions of their projects and consequent deterioration of listed species’ habitats. In reaction to concerns that wildlife groups could rally ESA provisions to regulate greenhouse gases when the polar bear was listed as threatened this May, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne alluded to ESA changes that would not hold individual polluters responsible for destroying the bears’ habitat. Many scientific studies have revealed that human emissions increase atmospheric temperatures and diminish the Arctic sea ice vital to the bears’ survival. While the polar bear is the first species threatened by global warming to be listed, several snow-dependent, alpine mammals, such as the wolverine and pika, also face vanishing habitats. Nonetheless, the Interior Department maintains that the Endangered Species Act is not an appropriate vehicle for setting the stringent climate policy that the Bush administration has consistently avoided. Kempthorne’s recent statement about ESA changes reiterates that, “The proposed rule is consistent with the current understanding that it is not possible to draw a direct causal link between greenhouse gas emissions and distant observations of impacts affecting species. As a result, it is inappropriate to consult on a remote agency action involving the contribution of emissions to global warming because it is not possible to link the emissions to impacts on specific, listed species such as polar bears.”

Although the federal government has downplayed the significance of these ESA changes, they yet again seriously undermine, perhaps illegally, a landmark environmental law through administrative rulemaking. Please review the proposed rule detailing ESA revisions and a related article at the links below and, most importantly, offer these points for government officials to consider when you comment on this affront to our shared wildlife heritage at the website that follows:

* The new ESA rules will hasten the extinction of many endangered and threatened species by redefining the processes that provide for their protection under the existing law. These administrative rule changes, rather than more valid and socially representative legislative reforms to the ESA, will not withstand public lawsuits and judicial scrutiny, as apparent in previous court rejections of similar regulation changes.

* Any possible harmful effects to threatened or endangered species and their habitats from federal agency actions should be analyzed by the currently responsible government entities. The present law requires interagency consultation if a project “may affect” a listed species or critical habitat. The new ESA rules reduce consultations by redefining what is considered harmful and by limiting the scope of causation between projects and their effects on protected species or critical habitat. Segmenting projects and their impacts for analysis reduces attention to the probability of harmful cumulative effects. “Insignificant” and “marginal” contributors to “any effect” on listed species or habitat should require consultation actions that assess potential harm, especially if their cumulative impacts represent “one of the main causes of species decline and extinction.” Unlike in the new regulations, even if harmful effects beyond a proposed project would diminish protected species or habitats, an ESA review should remain required, as multiple causes could compound species risks and further degrade habitats.

* The new ESA regulations essentially eliminate informal scientific reviews of federal projects that could jeopardize declining plant and animal populations. Under existing law, the informal consultation process identifies protected species or critical habitats in proposed project areas, determines potentially harmful project impacts to these entities, and evaluates and recommends possible mitigation measures. Although some federal agency actions do not presently require interagency consultation when proposals present no risk to endangered or threatened species and habitats, over 90 percent of projects now solely rely on informal consultation and usually proceed only after the operating agency has modified its actions in response to consulted scientists’ concerns. Without this critical function of species protection engendered by FWS and NMFS review, analysis, and judgment, federal agencies may unilaterally, and perhaps wrongly, decide whether their projects may adversely affect listed species and habitats. Such unbridled agency discretion rarely results in regulatory compliance and most frequently accomplishes degradation of valuable public resources.

* Formal consultations have been crucial to protecting dwindling species and habitats through ESA rules. These intensive reviews result when the FWS or NMFS determine that projects will jeopardize protected species or adversely modify critical habitat. Their subsequent preparation of a biological assessment outlines mandatory project changes and additional mitigation measures. Federal agencies often underestimate and/or understate the harmful impacts of their projects and resist these interagency efforts to protect species through the consultation process. Under the new regulations, the requirement for formal consultation is negated or greatly reduced by federal agency determinations that their projects will produce no harm to listed species and critical habitats.

* Current ESA rules stipulate that a federal agency project can not proceed if the consultation recommendations put forth by the FWS or NMFS are not satisfied. The new regulations allow federal agencies to terminate consultation and initiate actions, even if they may harm designated species or habitats, if the FWS or NMFS have not acted on their request for concurrence within 60 days. An extension of 60 days may be permitted, but after 120 days, federal agencies may proceed with their projects if the FWS or NMFS has not supplied a written determination. Unfortunately, most delays in many ESA processes arise more from limited government funding than from federal employee inefficiency.

* The revised ESA proposal does not require federal agencies to evaluate and consult other scientists about their potential project contributions to greenhouse gas emissions and subsequent climate change impacts on listed species, such as polar bears. Although localized air pollution may arise primarily from federally authorized actions, like building a forest road, and secondarily from resulting uses, such as vehicle traffic, these processes would be excluded from scientific review by the new, convoluted ESA causation definitions. These rules state that the greenhouse gas emissions of projects must be the “essential cause” of any species impacts associated with global warming before they can be evaluated. Furthermore, if these effects transpire later, they could not constitute scientifically evaluated “effects of the action” under the proposed definition revisions, because they must be reasonably certain to occur based on “clear and substantial information,” cannot be speculative, and must be more than just likely to occur. Besides otherwise dismissing greenhouse gas emissions as “insignificant contributors” to impacts on listed species under the new applicability rules, the weakened ESA declares that these effects are “not capable of being meaningfully identified or detected in a manner that permits evaluation” and that “the potential risk of jeopardy to the listed species or adverse modification or destruction of their critical habitat [from greenhouse gas emissions] is remote.”

The link below provides the legal text and agency explanations of proposed ESA rule changes as they appear in the Federal Register notice: