Alliance Establishes Legal Fund to Push for
Sound Science in ESA Decision-Making
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The Family Farm Alliance Board of Directors on June 9,
2009 took extraordinary action by directing staff to
seek a judicial order requiring the federal government
to use the best available scientific data in documents
intended to protect the Delta Smelt under the Endangered
Species Act (ESA), and is seeking contributions for a
special fund established to support that effort.
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(Klamath Falls, OR - June 23, 2009). |
The organization is asking for contributions to fund
legal action that will be filed later this week.
"This effort builds upon ongoing Alliance activities,
for which funding is already tight," said Alliance
Executive Director Dan Keppen (OREGON).
The Alliance in December 2008 filed a request under the
Information Quality Act (IQA) that was intended to ensure
that the new requirements proposed by the U.S.Fish and
Wildlife Service (USFWS) were based solely on the best
available scientific data. The Alliance believes the USFWS
failed to comply with the requirements of the IQA when it
developed the Delta Smelt Biological Opinion. The Alliance
and USFWS have traded letters for the past six months, and
the attorney representing the Alliance in this matter
noted
that administrative measures are not goingto help San
Joaquin Valley communities.
"We have been forced to seek a judicial order requiring
the USFWS to use the best available scientific data under
ESA, withdraw the 2008 smelt opinion from the public
domain, and make corrections under the IQA," said Brenda
Davis, an attorney from Sacramento who is representing the
Alliance.
The action is an important one, not just for San Joaquin
growers, but for farmers and ranchers throughout the West
whose water supply certainty can be put at risk by agency
opinions that ignore sound science to focus solely on
control of irrigation diversions and dams. The Alliance
hopes to judicially confirm that agencies must comply with
the IQA when developing technical information that will
affect water users.
"There are many, many stressors impacting Delta smelt, but
the federal agencies appear to be focused only on one: the
water project pumps," said Keppen. "We question the
viability of their science and want to see their files
associated with the science."
"If we are successful in this endeavor, the IQA - as
backed by the court - would give agriculture a new way of
dealing with agency science decisions," said Alliance
Board member Chris Hurd, who farms in the San Joaquin
Valley. "USFWS has already concluded that it does not need
to act. This shows they don't believe we are serious."
"This is the first time the Family Farm Alliance has
engaged in litigation, and it's not a step we take
lightly. We don't expect to become a litigant on a regular
basis, but our board unanimously felt other avenues used
to advance our Information Quality Act request had run
into dead ends," said Alliance
President Patrick O'Toole (WYOMING). "Litigation provides
our only opportunity to advance our argument against the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and turn around the faulty
science that has shut down our members' operations in
California."
As a result of the 2008 Biological Opinion for Delta Smelt
prepared by the USFWS, members of the Alliance are facing
potential damage to crops in the range of $23 million to
$1 billion.
The Alliance has announced that it will create a legal
fund exclusively to support this effort and is asking its
membership to contribute.If you would like to
participate in this important endeavor, please contact Dan
Keppen at 541-892-6244 or by email:dankeppen@charter.net.
Contributions can also be mailed directlyto: Family Farm
Alliance Legal Fund, 22895 S. Dickenson Avenue, Riverdale,
CA 93656.
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The Family Farm Alliance is a grassroots organization
of family farmers, ranchers, irrigation districts and
allied industries in 16 Western states. The Alliance is
focused on one mission: To ensure the availability of
reliable, affordable irrigation water supplies to Western
farmers and ranchers. Since 2005, the Family Farm Alliance
has been invited to testify 16 times before Congress on
water and environmental challenges and legislation. For
more information on the Alliance, go to
www.familyfarmalliance.org |
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