Endangered Species Act and Arkansas River's

[mrsat_98]

Uh Oh , hear come the Feds.

http://www.kait8.com/story/25520186/region

BATESVILLE, AR (KAIT) - Congressman Rick Crawford called more than 100 landowners, businesses and concerned citizens together to discuss the future of two endangered mussel species.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed a critical habitat designation for the Neosho Mucket and Rabbitsfoot mussels.

This means the region may have to do more to prevent the mussels from becoming extinct and many in Region 8 worry this could have negative economic impacts.

"We could see millions and millions of dollars lost in productivity, farmers who can't farm, ranchers who can't run their cattle, businesses that operate in proximity to the rivers," Crawford said.

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the estimated cost for additional federal actions because of the proposed designation would be about $5 million over 20 years. It would impact 31 counties and more than 700 miles of rivers and streams in Arkansas.

The proposed designation would have the largest impact on the agriculture industry. The government would enforce more restrictions and regulations to protect these species under the Endangered Species Act.

Supporters said they need restrictions like this to protect the endangered mussels before they become extinct.

However, opponents said the government is being overprotective and, instead, should protect someone else: farmers.

"We have always made our living from the land," Arkansas Farm Bureau President Randy Veach said.

Veach is a third generation farmer from Mississippi County. He said he worries protecting these endangered species would change farmers' entire way of life.

"Those kind of normal, agricultural practices that we do every day on our farms and ranches could be disrupted," Veach said.

More at the link.

[mrsat_98]

http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/n...5-14-2014.html


For Immediate Release, May 14, 2014

Contact: Brett Hartl, (202) 817-8121

House Natural Resources Committee Holds Yet Another Hearing Attacking Endangered Species Act

House Republicans Seek to Undermine Protection of Critical Habitat for
Southeast Mussels, Other Endangered Wildlife

BATESVILLE, Ark.— Rep. “Doc” Hastings brings his anti-Endangered Species Act sideshow to a field hearing today at the University of Arkansas Community College in Batesville, where he and his Tea Party colleagues will continue their partisan assault on the landmark wildlife law by seeking to undercut critical habitat protections that provide an essential lifeline to rare and vanishing species. A focus of the hearing will be recent critical habitat designations for two southeastern mussels, the Neosho mucket and rabbitsfoot, which include 769 river miles in Arkansas.

“You can’t protect animals like the rabbitsfoot mussel without protecting the places they live,” said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Critical habitat has a minimal impact on private landowners, but makes a big difference to the survival of endangered species. Studies show that species with critical habitat protection are twice as likely to be recovering than species without.”

Today’s hearing comes after Rep. Hastings (R-Wash.) and his ultraconservative supporters in the House introduced four bills that would not only weaken the power of the Endangered Species Act to save the nation’s most imperiled plants and animals but would purposefully undercut the power of citizens to help enforce the law that has prevented the extinction of 99 percent of the plants and animals it protects.

“The American public overwhelmingly supports protecting endangered species,” said Greenwald. “Protecting habitat for southeastern mussels helps us all by saving the rivers that are a source of drinking water, food and enjoyment. What these extremist politicians are telling us is that they couldn’t care less about the health of the water shared by the wildlife, plants and citizens of the Southeast.”

Likely absent from the hearing will be the most important facts about the freshwater extinction crisis in the Southeast and the need to protect habitat for these two critically imperiled mussels and many other species. Those facts include:

The Neosho mucket and rabbitsfoot mussels have been extirpated from almost two-thirds of their historic ranges. Since first being identified as imperiled, the Neosho mussel has disappeared from two more rivers systems.
The Southeast is home to more species of freshwater animals than any comparable area, including 493 fishes (62 percent of U.S. fish species), at least 269 mussels (91 percent of U.S. mussel species), and 241 dragonflies and damselflies (48 percent of all those in North America). The Southeast also contains more than two-thirds of North America’s species of crayfishes and more amphibians and aquatic reptiles than any other region.
The Southeast’s staggering variety of freshwater life forms and their habitat also make up one of the most imperiled ecosystems on the planet. Water pollution, development, logging, poor agricultural practices, dams, mining, invasive species and other threats have caused more than 50 species to go extinct in the region and a similar fate is looming for more than 28 percent of the region’s fishes, more than 48 percent of its crayfishes and more than 70 percent of its mussels. The majority of imperiled aquatic species in the Southeast are not protected by the Endangered Species Act or any other law.
“Given that one of the world’s great extinction crises is happening right in front of our eyes, the Republican Party’s hostility to common-sense habitat protections for these mussel species is a sorry testament to its out-of-touchness. These are protections that, without a doubt, will help get not only the mussels but also our rivers on the road to recovery,” said Greenwald.

The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 775,000 members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.

[mrsat_98]

http://www.fws.gov/arkansas-es/docs/..._ARK_FINAL.pdf

map of areas affected.

[Origanalist]

Maybe it's time to start a mussel farm.

[mrsat_98]

Maybe it's time to start a mussel farm.

feds would kill them

[tod evans]

Much cheaper and better for the locals if no laws are passed and the monies used to fund this Center for Biological Diversity is instead donated to the local farmers to improve their lands.

It doesn't make sense to donate to city bound college boys who lobby for more government spending when those who are concerned could effect immediate change by helping out the farmers...

[Acala]

The endangered species act is a disaster and EPA should be largely abolished. However, industrial farmers are the single largest source of water pollution in the country. Agricultural runoff, exempt from the Clean Water Act, carries huge quantities of chemical fertilizer, pesticides, and herbicides into streams and rivers that the farmers do not own. Federal regulation is not the way to handle the problem, but it IS a problem and farmers are not innocent victims here. They are trying to protect a special privilege to use rivers to carry away their waste products.

[jonhowe]

Is anyone concerned about the species that may soon cease to exist?

We already destroyed the vast majority of mussels in the US, do we really want to destroy them all?

[tod evans]

Is anyone concerned about the species that may soon cease to exist?

We already destroyed the vast majority of mussels in the US, do we really want to destroy them all?

Government regulations are not going to ensure some freshwater mussel survives.....

[Acala]

Is anyone concerned about the species that may soon cease to exist?

We already destroyed the vast majority of mussels in the US, do we really want to destroy them all?

If private property rights to the waters and the mussels had been recognized, the market would already have made the cost/benefit analysis to answer the question. Because the proper question is not "should we save the mussels?". The proper question is "who is willing to PAY the price associated with not using the implicated resources in a different way?". Would consumers be willing to pay more for turnips in order to save the mussels? Maybe. Would enough people be willing to pony up the money from their own pockets to BUY the land needed to protect the mussels? Maybe. We will never know.

The system as it is - one based on public ownership of resources and the use of force - makes it impossible to answer your question. There is no way to know if anyone REALLY cares about the mussel or not. And by "REALLY cares" I mean willing to make a personal sacrifice to save them. Being willing to use government to force OTHER people to bear the cost of saving the mussel, or hiding the cost in the higher price of goods, does not demonstrate real concern. It could be no more than a whim.

[donnay]

Agenda 21: Land Use Control

Endangered Species

The Endangered Species Act became law in 1973. It was seen as necessary to protect the Bald Eagle, and a few other species that were endangered. Few, if any, Congressmen in 1972 ever imagined that in less than 25 years there would be thousands of species listed, and thousands more waiting to be listed. The Supreme Court has ruled that the law covers, not only endangered species, but the habitat that may be used by such endangered species. Private property on which an endangered species is found is immediately under the control of the federal government. The Department of Interior may declare private property to be "critical habitat" even if no endangered species has been spotted. The Endangered Species Act, too, became law in order to conform domestic law to the requirements of the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

Scenic Rivers & Byways

American rivers designated as "scenic," under the American Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, are controlled, ultimately by the federal government, including private property that fronts the river. Land owners are denied the use of their own property by the federal government without compensation or recourse. The Scenic Byways program of the U.S. Department of Transportation is not authorized by a particular law. It is a program of the Department. When a highway is designated as a "Scenic Byway," everything within the viewshed of the highway is subject to the control of a "stakeholders" council created by the designation. The stakeholders council may prevent the land owner from using his land if the council determines that the proposed use diminishes the viewshed.

http://whatisagenda21.net/landuse.htm

[oyarde]

I like my mussels steamed in hot coals and hot rocks covered in pine boughs with a gin & tonic or smoked in the smoker and with a beer. They are still abundant in a creek I duck hunt on. Bigfoot eats them too , but he does the sushi thing .