CARLSBAD, Calif., June 24 /PRNewswire/ -- The 30-year-old Endangered
Species Act is being abused to pursue a political agenda that is unrelated
both to the spirit and letter of the law, a group of off-highway motorsports
enthusiasts contend, and it's time for reform.
More than 200 people attended a rally on Friday, June 18, outside the
offices of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service here to protest a decision that,
on its face, appears to violate both federal law and peer-reviewed,
unimpeachable science. The Fish & Wildlife Service recently announced its
intention to leave a plant called the Peirson's Milkvetch [cq] on the federal
endangered species list. This decision was issued despite a three-year
scientific study by a respected biologist, Dr. Arthur W. Phillips III, that
conclusively demonstrated that the plant was not just surviving, but thriving.
The PMV is also prevalent in a part of the same desert ecosystem south of the
California/Mexico border.
The decision to leave the plant on the list means that the large central
region of the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area, where the Peirson's
Milkvetch (PMV) is also found, will remain an "Adaptive Management Area" that
would allow a limited number of vehicles per day. An estimated 1.5 million
people from around the western United States visited the area in 2003.
And while off-road enthusiasts are upset about losing a prime riding area,
they see a larger and more ominous trend here.
"We have unelected, unaccountable mid-level bureaucrats working with
private citizens to dictate public policy, and using junk science to justify
their actions," said Roy Denner, president of the Off-Road Business
Association (ORBA), a San Diego-based trade association. "When Congress passed
the Endangered Species Act and President Nixon signed it into law in 1973, its
intent was to give threatened species a chance to rebound. We agree with that
philosophy -- all of us want to protect our environment, both for ourselves
and our children. But we now have a group of bureaucrats who want to use this
law not to protect endangered species, but simply cut off public access to
public lands for any reason - and they apparently don't need good science to
justify their actions."
Grant George, president of the American Sand Association which sponsored
the rally, contends the law is open to abuse because it is too broad, and
needs to be revamped in order to remain true to its authors' intent.
"This issue will not go away," George said. "On one level, you can say it
is about protecting our right to ride off-highway -- and protecting the
thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in economic impact that support a
thriving, legal industry. But on a much larger scale, this is about holding
bureaucrats accountable for their illegal actions, and making certain that the
Endangered Species Act is interpreted and applied fairly, legally and in the
spirit its framers intended."
The San Diego Off-Road Coalition also sponsored the event, which drew more
than 100 vehicles which drove past the dark Fish & Wildlife Service offices
and gathered across Palomar Airport Road.
Speakers at the rally included State Sens. Bill Morrow, R-Oceanside;
Dennis Hollingsworth, R-Murrieta; San Diego County Supervisor Bill Horn; Don
Fife, an Environmental and Economic Geologist; Rick Royse, ISA Certified
Arborist; and Roy Denner, president of ORBA. Barry Jantz, District Chief of
Staff to Assemblyman Jay La Suer, R-La Mesa, emceed the event.
BACKGROUND:
In March of 2000, the Federal Bureau of Land Management settled a lawsuit
by the Center for Biological Diversity, the Sierra Club and the Public
Employees for Environmental Responsibility to protect the PMV. As part of that
interim settlement, the BLM temporarily closed 49,310 acres to Off-Highway
Vehicle (OHV) use. This was in addition to almost 30,000 acres that had been
permanently closed in 1994.
In 2001, the ASA engaged a respected biologist, Dr. Arthur Phillips III of
Flagstaff, AZ, to conduct an ongoing exhaustive three-year study of the PMV in
the Imperial Dunes environment. Dr. Phillips' paper, presented in July 2003,
concluded that the PMV was not in any way threatened. The plant showed 71,000
viable examples in Spring 2001, plus an estimated seed bank (seeds in the sand
and soil awaiting germination at the first suitable rainfall) of between 2.5
million and 5.8 million seeds during 2002 (Phillips, 2003).
Despite this finding, in June of 2004, the Fish & Wildlife Service chose
to ignore this exhaustive, peer-reviewed science and announced the PMV would
remain classified as an endangered species.
For More Information Visit:
http://www.americansandassociation.org
The complete text of Dr. Phillips' study is available online at:
http://www.americansandassociation.org/documents/legal/2003FinalReport_July.pdf
Contact: Jim Colln, 562-810-3173
volunteers@americansandassociation.org
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