--- Bart Semcer <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Date:         Wed, 12 Feb 2003 11:17:32 -0500
> From:         Bart Semcer
> <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: ACT: Bush Administration Policy Threatens
> American Waters and Wildlife
> To:           [log in to unmask]
>
> TO:       Sierra Club Wildlife and Endangered
> Species Activists
> FROM:     Bart Semcer, Associate Washington, DC
> Representative
> DATE:          February 12, 2003
>
> Please Circulate
>
>
> BUSH ADMINISTRATION POLICY THREATENS AMERICAN WATERS
> & WILDLIFE
>
> Please write your Members of Congress today and ask
> them to support strong
> conservation measures for America's waters,
> wetlands, endangered species
> and other wildlife.  Ask them to write EPA
> Administrator Christie Whitman
> and tell her to rescind the January 15, 2003
> guidance memo on the scope of
> the Clean Water Act because it goes beyond what the
> courts have ruled and
> would eliminate conservation measures for clean
> waters, wetlands endangered
> species and other wildlife.
>
> WRITE YOUR CONGRESSPERSON
> The Hon. ___
> United States House of Representatives
> Washington, DC  20515
>
> WRITE YOUR SENATORS
> Senator ___
> United States Senate
> Washington, DC  20510
>
> If you do not know who your Members of Congress are
> visit
> http://congress.org/congressorg/dbq/officials/
>
>
> SAMPLE LETTER (Feel Free to Modify Based On Your Own
> Knowledge and
> Experiences)
>
> I am writing to ask you to support conserving
> America's clean waters and
> the wildlife, especially endangered species, that
> depend on them. Please
> contact EPA Administrator Christie Whitman and ask
> her to rescind the
> guidance memo her agency issued on January 15
> instructing EPA field offices
> not to implement the Clean Water Act on so called
> "isolated" waters without
> permission.
>
> America's clean waters and wetlands are among its
> most productive habitats.
> Thousands of native species, many of them listed
> under the Endangered
> Species Act, depend on clean waterways and wetlands
> for their continued
> survival and recovery.  Currently thousands of miles
> of waterways and
> millions of acres of wetlands are at risk because of
> Administrator
> Whitman's decision to selectively enforce the Clean
> Water Act.  The habitat
> loss that could result from this misguided policy
> risks impeding species
> recovery efforts under the ESA, such as those for
> the whooping crane, and
> jeopardizing America's successes in waterfowl
> restoration.
>
> Please let Administrator Whitman know that the
> restrictions she has placed
> on Clean Water Act enforcement, and by extension
> wildlife conservation, go
> far beyond the limitations handed down in recent
> Supreme Court rulings.
> Please support all efforts to maintain strong
> protections for America's
> endangered species and other wildlife.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Your Name
>
> BACKGROUND
>
> America's waterways and wetlands are among its most
> productive habitats.
> For 30 years these habitats and the fish and
> wildlife they support have
> been conserved under the Clean Water Act.  Last
> month the Bush
> Administration adopted a policy of implementing the
> Clean Water Act on only
> a limited basis, placing thousands of miles of
> waterways, millions of acres
> of wetlands and hundreds of native fish and wildlife
> species at risk from
> pollution and outright destruction.
>
> On January 15, 2003 the EPA released a guidance memo
> to field staff
> instructing them not to proceed with implementing
> the Clean Water Act on
> so-called "isolated", non-navigable waters, without
> the express permission
> of EPA headquarters.  The Bush Administration claims
> this is necessary in
> order to comply with the 2001 Supreme Court ruling
> in the case of SWANCC v.
> U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.  In the SWANCC case
> the majority of justices
> held that the presence of migratory birds cannot be
> the sole reason for
> implementing the Clean Water Act over what they
> termed "isolated"
> non-navigable intrastate waters.
>
> The critical issue for conservationists is how the
> Administration is
> defining "isolated" and to what waters that
> definition will apply. From a
> scientific perspective very few waters are
> "isolated" since the pollution
> or destruction of even small wetlands, headwater
> streams and seasonal
> waters will impact the ecological integrity of other
> waters. The term
> "isolated" is not found anywhere in the Clean Water
> Act but it is clear
> from the language and history of the law that
> Congress intended the Act to
> conserve ALL of the waters of the United States and
> the fish and wildlife
> resources they contain.
>
> The guidance memo from the Bush Administration
> effectively puts into place
> a policy that allows the EPA to refrain from
> applying the Clean Water Act
> to approximately 20 million acres of wetlands and
> thousands of miles of
> streams.  Under the Bush policy not only is the
> presence of migratory birds
> insufficient reason to implement the Clean Water Act
> but so is the presence
> of threatened and endangered species, commercial and
> recreational fisheries
> and hunting and angling opportunities.  The Bush
> policy goes far beyond the
> enforcement limitations handed down by the Supreme
> Court and opens the door
> for developers, mining companies, agribusiness and
> other special interests
> to destroy the fish and wildlife habitat found in
> prairie potholes, vernal
> pools, headwater streams and other so called
> "isolated" waters.  If it
> continues to be implemented this Bush Administration
> policy stands to have
> serious, negative consequences for wildlife
> conservation in the following
> ways:
>
> · Reducing the amount of habitat that threatened and
> endangered species
> such as the whooping crane, wood stork and Everglade
> snail kite depend on
> for their survival and recovery.  A full 43 percent
> of America's threatened
> and endangered species depend upon wetlands for
> their continued
> persistence.
>
> · Cutting the habitat available to the nation's
> waterfowl such as wood
> ducks, canvasbacks and the Greater Yellowstone
> trumpeter swan, a species
> whose numbers have declined by 25 percent in the
> last year and which has
> been proposed for conservation under the ESA.
> America's hunters have
> invested millions of dollars in the conservation and
> management of the
> nation's waterfowl and these investments are
> jeopardized by inadequate
> wetlands protections.
>
> · Eliminating many seasonal wetlands that serve as
> nurseries for juvenile
> frogs, toads, salamanders and other species and
> small streams that are
> essential to recover populations of endangered wild
> salmon and other
> popular sport and commercial fisheries.
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> - - - - - -
> To view the Sierra Club List Terms & Conditions,
> see:
>  http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/terms.asp


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