7852

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 7852
• Author: Bolin, J. H.
• Title: Of Razorbacks and Reservoirs
• USFW Year: 1993
• USFW - Doc Type: The Endangered Species Act's Protection of Endangered Colorado River Basin Fish
• Copyright Material: YES

50

PACE ENVIRONMENTAL LAW REVIEW

[Vol. 11

biotic coal mine, as indicators of the overall health of ecosys-
tems and of the extent of their perturbation. By radically al-
tering the environment, we run the risk of severe unintended
consequences. Critics of this argument suggest that we do
not need indicator species - miners now use electronic
monitors rather than canaries79 - but this argument
presumes that we know of and fully understand all of the ef-
fects that need to be measured. As DDT's creep up the food'
chain demonstrated years ago,80 we often cannot foresee the
full environmental effects of our actions.81 We thus ignore
the interconnection of living things at our peril.
The "indicator. species" rationale82 undergirds the cur-
rent and coming generation of litigation under the ESA. A
brief but insightful article by J.B. Ruhl notes that the ESA
has "evolv[ed] through three distinct phases: (1) single-pro-
ject focus; (2) regional growth regulation; and (3) natural re-
source management."83 In the first phase, typified by TV A u.
Hill,84 litigation focused on the impacts of a single federal
project, usually some form of construction, and sought to

79. Id.
80. See generally RACHEL CARSON, SILENT SPRING (1987).
81. Recent government studies regarding the persistence of DDT in the en-
vironment have indicated that it is, in fact, a serious ongoing problem. JOSEPH
F. RINELLA ET AL., U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY CIRCULAR 1090, PERSISTENCE OF
THE DDT PESTICIDE IN THE YAKIMA RIVER BASIN WASHINGTON (1993). For ex-
ample, in one recent study in the Yakima River Basin in Washington the U.S.
Geological Survey found: .
[T]hat chemical breakdown of T-DDT is slow because, despite the
ban on the production and distribution of DDT in 1972, concentra-
tions of'l"-DDT in the Yakima River near Kiona commonly exceeded
the chronic-toxicity criterion for the protection of freshwater
aquatic life between 1972 and 1990. The contaminated agricultural
soils could, therefore, provide a large and long term reservoir of T-
DDT to streams and fish in the Yakima River Basin for decades to
come.
rd. at 21 (emphasis added).
82. For a general discussion of the indicator species rationale, see Jeb Boyt,
Comment, Struggling to Protect Ecosystems and Biodiversity Under NEPA and
NFMA: The Ancient Forests of the Pacifu: Northwest, 10 PACE ENVTL. L. REV.
1004 (1992).
83. J.B. Ruhl, Phase Three of the ESA: Using Endangered Species Protec-
tion as a Natural Resource Management Tool, 6 NAT. RESOURCES & ENV'T,
1992, 38, 38 (1992).
84. See supra notes 41-44 and accompanying discussion.

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Supp. 1473