The Sierra Club has signed on to a letter opposeing this rider.

For Immediate Release
January 22, 2003
From:
Eric Eckl, American Rivers(202) 347-7550 ext. 3023
Scott Faber, Environmental Defense,

Proposed "rider" would exempt Missouri River from Endangered Species Act

(Washington, DC) - Missouri Senator Kit Bond introduced an amendment
today
to the omnibus appropriations bill today that would effectively exempt
the
Missouri River from the Endangered Species Act, conservationists warned.
The
language in Senator Bond's "rider" would override federal law and allow
the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to flood or move the nests of endangered
birds
nesting downstream from Gavins Point dam near Sioux City, Iowa to ensure

sufficient river flows for the handful of commercial barges plying the
lower
Missouri River.

The rider also directs the Corps of Engineers to move the nests and baby

chicks of the endangered interior least tern and the threatened piping
plover off river sandbars into a captive rearing facility, a scheme that
in
the past has killed many of the hatchlings.

"Moving these struggling birds to a brick building is a death sentence,"

said Chad Smith, director of American Rivers' Missouri River Field
Office.
"Common sense dictates that what troubled species on the Missouri really

need is a healthy river system, not a healthy dose of legislative
riders."

"Without dam reforms, these species will creep closer to extinction and
dozens of additional species will need federal protection," said Scott
Faber, Environmental Defense Water Resources Specialist. "But, Senator
Bond's rider would go further and undermine navigation on the
Mississippi
River during a serious drought, and devastate reservoir recreation in
Montana and the Dakotas."

Army Corps operations of its Missouri River dams and reservoirs have
long
prioritized commercial navigation over the much larger recreation and
tourist industries and the ecological health of the Missouri River.

A fact sheet with more information about the rider and its consequences
is
available at www.americanrivers.org

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