9367 ‎(2)‎

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 9367
• Author: Colorado Water Workshop.
• Title: Proceedings
• USFW Year: 1992.
• USFW - Doc Type: Colorado Water Workshop July 22-24, 1992.
• Copyright Material: NO

Balancing Endangered Species Protection and Water Development

Janice C. Sheftel
Attorney, Maynes, Bradford, Shipps & Sheftel

Although the Endangered Species Act has been called the most
comprehensive legislation for the preservation of endangered species
ever enacted by any nation, it passed in 1973 unanimously in the
Senate and almost unanimously in the House. Unfortunately, the
Endangered Species Act is broken and needs to be fixed. While failing
to achieve its stated goal of preventing the extinction of plants and
animals, the Act has been resoundingly successful at significantly
delaying or halting, and significantly escalating the cost of,
economic development projects, including water projects.
In 1988, the General Accounting Office reported that of the 965
species then listed as threatened and endangered only two had been
recovered through efforts credited to the Act. Of the 16 delistings
of threatened and endangered species since the Act passed, six species
were removed because they became extinct, and five were removed for
original data error. Recently, the Interior Department's Inspector
General reported that within the last decade 34 species became extinct
while awaiting federal protection and that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service receives only 0.2% of the funds needed to protect the over 600
threatened and endangered species in the United States. The Inspector
General also reported that the Service has failed to produce effective
recovery plans for many protected species and that it has done a poor
job of managing costs and information related to the endangered
species program.l Witness the debacle at the Service's Dexter, New
Mexico hatchery where nearly as many Colorado Squawfish were killed
in 1992 as have been found in the San Juan River. In addition, the
President's Council on Environmental Quality asserted that up to 9,000
plants and animals remain at risk, but reviewing their status will
take at least 50 years and could cost 4.6 billion dollars.2
The Act fails because it aims at the impossible goal of saving
every creature, employs questionable strategies, and is based on
limited, and what I shall call "arrogant" biology. The Act uses
inexact terms, such as subspecies. It relies on habitat preservation
to save endangered species, even when there is insufficient habitat
to sustain a viable population. The Act requires the preservation and
conservation of threatened and endangered species to take precedence
over all other considerations. This goal is binding on all federal
agencies and departments.
But our society does cause extinctions. To pretend that we are
acting to save every species, I believe, is "intellectually,
dishonest. It I quote from a very exciting article in the January 1992
Atlantic Monthly, called the "Butterfly Problem." "[The Act] "turns

IDavid Hackett, "Endangered Species Act promises major congressional
battle," Casper Star Tribune, December 9, 1991.

2A1ston Chase, "Reform Flawed Endangered Species Act."

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