7775

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 7775
• Author: Carlson, C. A. and R. T. Muth.
• Title: Inland Fisheries Management in North America, Chapter 15
• USFW Year: 1993.
• USFW - Doc Type: Endangered Species Management.
• Copyright Material: YES

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CHAPTER 15

the dam would flood productive farm land, destroy an excellent trout stream, and
inundate a sacred place of the Cherokee Indians. The snail darter's habitat, above
the site of the proposed Tellico Dam, was certain to be destroyed by closure of the
dam.
The Fish and Wildlife Service was petitioned to list the snail darter as
endangered in January 1975, a proposal to do so was published in the Federal
Register in June, and the fish was listed in October. That same year, TV A began
transplanting snail darters to the Hiwassee River, another tributary of the
Tennessee River, without informing state authorities or the FWS (0 no et al.
1983). Clearly a federal agency in violation of the ESA, TV A rushed to complete
construction of the dam. In 1976, the Environmental Defense Fund, whose help
had been enlisted by dam opponents, sued TV A for violating the ESA, and the
FWS declared the lower portion of the Little Tennessee River critical habitat for
the snail darter. The District Court in which trial was held found that the snail
darter would be eradicated by the dam but denied a request for a permanent
injunction on completion of construction. In early 1977, a Circuit Court of
Appeals reversed the District Court's decision and terminated all work on the dam
that threatened the snail darter or its critical habitat. News media began to
criticize the decision to stop a multimillion-dollar project because of a small,
inconsequential fish; the story was often presented as a case of environmentalism
carried to extremes (Ehrlich and Ehrlich 1981).
After apparent defeat, TV A asked the FWS to delist the snail darter and
requested permission to move all snail darters from the Little Tennessee River;
both requests were refused. The Tennessee Valley Authority also appealed the
Appeals Court's decision to the Supreme Court, which in June 1978 upheld the
injunction against the dam but". . . virtually invited Congress to amend the law
to allow exceptions" (Ehrlich and Ehrlich 1981). Congress did just that, passing
the 1978 amendments to the ESA' s Section 7 which allowed an Endangered
Species Committee to resolve conflicts between endangered species and projects
that threaten them. The committee established to resolve the snail darter- Tellico
Dam conflict considered evidence of the dam's benefits, alternatives to complet-
ing the dam, values that would be lost if it were finished. and new economic
analyses which showed that electricity would be produced at a deficit (Ehrlich and
Ehrlich 1981). It voted unanimously in early 1979 not to exempt the Tellico Project
because it was ill-conceived and uneconomical (Yaffee 1982; Ono et a\. 1983).
Later that year, the committee's decision was reversed and the conflict finally
ended when an amendment exempting the Tellico Project from provisions of all
federal laws was attached to the water projects appropriation bill in the House of
Representatives and passed without debate or opposition. The Senate tried
without success to kill the amendment, and President Carter cited political
problems and difficulties in vetoing a multipurpose bill; he signed the bill (with
regret, he said) in September 1979 (Ehrlich and Ehrlich 1981; Yatfee 1982). The
Tellico Dam was completed and closed early in 1980. The snail darter has recently
been said to be doing well in the Hiwassee River (Hickman 1981) and several other
places where new populations had been found (Ono et al. 1983). It was downlisted
from endangered to threatened in 1983.
The snail darter case has been called a classic boondoggle and a prime example
of how pork-barrel politics threaten the environment and efforts to preserve
species. However, Yatfee (1982) cited the case as an example of how the