7749 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

INTRODUCTIOI~I by KATHRYN A. KOHM IN APRIL 1978, almost fifteen years after the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) proposed construction of amultimillion-dollar dam on the Little Tennessee River, one of the most controversial endangered species protection cases was heard in the nation's highest court.' In posing his challenge to the Endangered Spe- cies Act, Griffin Bell, the counsel for TVA, pulled a small glass jar from his briefcase. The jar contained one tiny snail darter. As Bell held it up before the Supreme Court, he asked how athree- inchfish could be valued higher than amultimillion-dollar dam. Clearly the benefits of the Tellico Dam and the price of .the snail darter's existence as a species do not fit neatly into acost-benefit analysis. After all, we are taught in the most basic math class that one cannot compare apples and oranges in the same equa- tion. Yet the image created by Griffin Bell epitomizes precisely this dilemma. Indeed it is the dilemma that the Endangered Species Act of 1973 requires us to confront. The act is one of those extraordinary collective decisions that emerge in a plural- ist democracy in which innovation and progress are often pain- fully slow. It requires us to look beyond the day-to-day business of building dams, harvesting timber, or improving crop yields and learn to live in a way that is compatible with our fellow species. During the same years that the Endangered Species Act was being forged, men walked on the moon. Although the two events