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

in the project will look into the problem now that we have been made
aware of it.

Mark Shaffer: I would also like to comment on that. It is a good
question. I have no idea if the service has any money available for
it or not. My suspicion would be no.
This brings up a very important point that I think we all have
to be aware of. In 1990 the total appropriation to the Fish and
Wildlife program to implement the Endangered Species Act was $39
million. If you are like me that 'sounds like a lot of money, in an
individual context. Understand that the average cost of paving one
mile of four lane interstate highway in an urban area is $39 million
and you begin to get some idea of the relative commitment that
Congress and our government has made to make resources available for
dealing with some of these contentious issues.
Another analogy that I think is instructive: my organization has
worked for a long time on issues of selling public timber from
national forests on what we call a below-cost sales basis. These are
sales that we think do not recoup to the treasury the actual value of
the timber involved. Our estimates, and there is room for debate on
these, are that this averages to be about $250 million per year. The
total expenditure by the federal government on the Endangered Species
Act throughout the nearly 20 years of its history is $700 million.
Everyone says that we cannot afford the Endangered Species Act.
Folks, we could afford it if we would eliminate the below cost timber
sales for just three years.
Another analogy is that the U.S. Fish and wildlife Service, who
I used to work for and still respect, spends roughly $300 million a
year for a variety of things that really come down to trying to
maintain huntable levels of migratory waterfowl. I enj oy duck hunting
as much as the next person, and I am not saying that it is not
important and we should not spend the money. However, compare that
to the fact that we have hundreds of listed endangered species,
thousands of candidates, and we are running into situations where
there are some problems that need to be fixed. There is no money
available and we are told we cannot afford it. I think that is just
bunk. I think that just demonstrates the fact that Congress passed
a law that this society was not quite ready to live up to. I think
in the twenty years since then, we have come to understand some good
reasons to live up to it. We know what it is going to take and we can
afford it, but we are not doing it.

Patrick Parenteau: I would only add that in terms of the Endangered
Species Act there is no specific fund like you referred to. Maybe
there should be. There are private efforts like the Defenders of
Wildlife Program for compensating landowners for wolf depredation..
These are all in the private or the nonprofit sector and maybe the
government could take a lesson from them.
Wi th your problem in particular, I would say this, if in fact the
damage that you are talking about was done to private property as a
result of flows released from the federal facility to accomplish an
endangered species objective you may have a tort claim. In other
words, you may have a claim against the government for damage to
private property as a result of something that was done negligently.

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