USFWS/Southeast/Flickr

Their habitat faces serious threats from the United States Army Corps’ wasteful construction projects that eliminate and degrade wetland habitat crucial for the bears and other wildlife.

What’s a “WRDA” Water Resources Development Act?

The Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) is legislation that Congress uses to tell the Army Corps of Engineers what projects to build on our landscape. The Senate is expected to vote next week on a WRDA that could mean trouble for the black bear in several significant and serious ways. This WRDA includes provisions (Section 2032 & 2033) that would speed up Corps projects by shortening the amount of time available to complete a thorough environmental review of the projects. This undermines the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which was designed to evaluate the environmental impact of projects before constructing them. The provisions also make it more difficult for scientists, other agencies, and the public to influence the construction of Corps projects.

Black bear cubs in Wilkinson County, Mississippi. Photo by David Watts.

Environmental review protects wildlife

Having an adequate environmental review process saved the Louisiana black bear when their Mississippi wetland habitat was threatened by the Corps’ Yazoo Pumps project.

This unnecessary and environmentally destructive project would have damaged hundreds of thousands of acres of wetlands as well as two National Wildlife Refuges in the Mississippi River Delta. With the provisions in this WRDA, the project would have gone forward with less understanding of the environmental implications the construction would have had on the Louisiana black bear and other wildlife. Instead, the Environmental Protection Agency was able to step in and prohibit the project’s construction, saving these valuable wetlands and wildlife habitat.

Stand up for black bears and other wildlife!

Any bill with these provisions – provisions that would undermine years of conservation efforts and harm wildlife – must not move forward.

Tell your United States Senators to stop this WRDA from moving forward until it maintains strong environmental protections so we can protect threatened Louisiana black bears and other wildlife from harmful Army Corps of Engineers projects.

RESTORE Act a Victory for Gulf’s Ecosystems and Economy

March 8 – The U.S. Senate today passed an amendment to add the RESTORE Act and the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) to the Senate transportation bill. The RESTORE Act would ensure that 80 percent of fines and penalties from the Gulf oil disaster would be dedicated to Gulf Coast restoration.

“Today’s bipartisan vote is a ray of hope for the people, wildlife and ecosystems hurt by the Gulf oil disaster that began nearly two years ago,” said Larry Schweiger, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation. “It’s now up to the House to follow through on promises to make the Gulf whole again by passing this critical legislation to restore the Gulf Coast’s wetlands and ecosystems, the lifeblood of the Gulf economy. Final passage would represent one of the great conservation achievements in recent memory, protecting and restoring land, water and wildlife along our coasts, in our oceans and our public lands across the country.”

Read NWF’s joint statement with our Gulf Coast restoration partners here.

Court Protects Taxpayers and Environment from Yazoo Pumps

March 7 – The National Wildlife Federation and the Mississippi Wildlife Federation celebrate the recent federal appeals court decision upholding the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to stop construction of the Yazoo Pumps in the Mississippi Delta.

“Today, taxpayers, wildlife and wetlands are safer from the endless drain of the Yazoo Pumps,” said Larry Schweiger, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation. “While the Pumps were touted as a flood control project, they would have drained the taxpayers’ wallets to make flooding worse and destroy valuable habitat for fish and wildlife. We would have been burdened with the environmental and economic damage of this bad investment for generations,” said Schweiger.

And here are highlights from NWF in the News:

• Public News Service: Gulf Coast Restoration Measure Clears Major Hurdle
• The Canadian Press: U.S. Senate rejects latest Republican attempts to force approval of Keystone XL
• High Country News: The BLM struggles to get ahead of oil and gas development in the West
• Fairfax News: County Schools NWF Establish Get2Green Partnership

For more, visit www.nwf.org/News

Chesapeake Bay photo by Scott Bauer

The government shutdown clock is ticking away furiously in Washington, D.C. as Congress wrestles with a budget agreement.

While many Americans have no choice but to ride out the storm, bad water riders in the house-passed Continuing Resolution, or H.R.1, continue to cloud the budget battle.

These harmful and unnecessary pieces of legislation have little to do with the budget bill or spending cuts and more to do with handcuffing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and creating giant loopholes for big polluters.

Bad water riders will:

• Ban EPA from closing recent Clean Water Act loopholes that remove protections for many waters,  jeopardizing the drinking water for 117 million Americans, threatening over half the nation’s stream miles, and opening 20 million acres of wetlands and prime wildlife habitat to polluters and developers. The Clean Water Act gives the EPA the authority to hold polluters accountable for oil spills, sewage and animal waste dumps, and other pollutants that go into rivers, lakes streams, estuaries, and wetlands.
• Ban EPA from protecting municipal water supplies, fisheries, and other critical water resources from being destroyed by large-scale mining, public works, and development projects that dredge, fill, and pollute productive waters.  EPA’s use of its Clean Water Act “404(c)” authority, a deliberative and open process rarely used, has saved taxpayers millions of dollars on wasteful and destructive public works projects, and saved Americans some of their most precious bays, rivers, and streams. This authority has only been used 13 times, and most recently to block the Yazoo Pumps project in Mississippi, which would have destroyed valuable wetlands and wasted billions of taxpayer dollars.
• Endanger the Chesapeake Bay by blocking efforts to clean up the Chesapeake Bay just as progress is finally being made to limit allowable pollution in the waters that feed the Bay through fair and effective measures. The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States, covering 6 states and Washington, D.C. The watershed supports rural economies and the $730 billion-a-year outdoor recreation industry.
• Endanger Florida Waters by blocking recently issued water quality standards for Florida’s lakes and flowing waters that are necessary to protect Florida’s waters from excess pollution from sewage, manure and fertilizer.  Excessive nutrient pollution from these chemicals and waste has created toxic algae blooms in Florida waters that can spread for over a 100 miles. The blooms undermine water quality in Florida, which lowers properties values, hurts waterfront businesses, and serves a major health risk to people, pets, and wildlife.
• Endanger the San Francisco Bay Delta by blocking key measures to protect imperiled salmon, Delta smelt, and the health of the entire Bay-Delta ecosystem, which is reliant on its life-giving water supply.
• Endanger Klamath salmon restoration by blocking a study critical to rebuilding what was once the Nation’s third largest salmon-producing river systems, while also accommodating fisheries, landowner, and electric utility stakeholders.
  
• Allow more stream dumping of coal mining waste by blocking EPA from restricting water pollution from proposed mountain top removal and other coal-mining projects, and from the toxic coal ash waste that is contaminating our streams and water supplies.

Speak Up for Wildlife

You can help stop the attacks on water and wildlife in the Continuing Resolution by speaking up for wildlife at NWF’s Action Center. Don’t let these bad water riders wash away America’s bedrock environmental safeguards.

David Conrad, Senior Water Resources Specialist calls this threatened area “America’s Amazon.”  Why?

• Listen to the names of trees that grow in the area – sugarberry, sweet gum, water oaks, water hickory, and sweet pecan.

• Millions of rainbow-colored shorebirds and migrating waterfowl call it home – purple gallinules, roseate spoonbills, green herons, snowy egrets – the list goes on and on.

• The threatened Louisiana black bear shelters in the deeply forested region – this area is one of its few remaining habitat tracts.

• American Alligators, descendants of dinosaurs, travel in the streams, shallow ponds, and sloughs.

To experience America’s Amazon for yourself, visit the Yazoo National Wildlife Refuge web site.

The Long Road to Stopping the Yazoo Pumps

In 2008 and at the urging of National Wildlife Federation and Mississippi Wildlife Federation, the Environmental Protection Agency invoked its infrequently used veto power [called a 404(c) veto] under the Clean Water Act to deny approval given to the project by the Army Corps of Engineers.

Roseate spoonbills by National Park Service

After the veto, local interests sued EPA under a legal theory that would have greatly weakened EPA’s power to review and deny harmful projects approved by the Corps.  NWF, MWF and others intervened on EPA’s behalf. 

Then, victory! The court upheld EPA’s broad authority to review and deny Corps approved projects, effectively putting the final nail in the Yazoo pumps’ coffin.

Already a Future Threat to EPA’s Ability to Veto Bad Projects?

Unfortunately, certain Congressional members have waged a sneak attack on this very 404 (c) EPA authority.  A rider to the Continuing Resolution for the budget would strip EPA of this authority.  The Yazoo pumps project demonstrates why this authority is critical to ensuring harmful projects are stopped and money is not wasted.

The area also contains the wetlands where Theodore Roosevelt famously refused to shoot a Louisiana Black Bear that had been tied to a tree–an action that sparked the creation of the teddy bear.

For almost 70 years, sportsmen and residents in Louisiana and Mississippi have fought the Army Corps of Engineers’ project for the threats it posed to wildlife refuges and national forests. Their efforts were also supported by more than 45,000 National Wildlife Federation activists who sent in public comments to the Environmental Protection Agency protesting the project’s efforts.

In an age of global warming, these wetlands need to be protected now more then ever.

Mississippi’s wetlands not only maintain a healthy population of wildlife in the area and nationally, but also protect residents from the increased flooding and harsh weather that comes with global warming.

The Yazoo project, sometimes called the “monster that won’t die,” is officially dead. Thanks to all of you who helped us achieve this historic victory.

Let’s keep up the fight to protect wildlife!

According to the EPA’s letter to the Army Corps…

“…the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is initiating review, under Section 404(c) of the Clean Water Act, of the proposed Yazoo Backwater Area Project in the Yazoo River Basin in Mississippi. EPA is taking this step because we have reason to believe that the recommended project plan could result in unacceptable adverse effects on the aquatic ecosystem, particularly to fish and wildlife resources.”

Download the EPA’s letter (pdf)

Hats off to the EPA for taking a stand against this wasteful project!

“A Green Day for Bush”
By Michael Grunwald, TIME Magazine

“On the unexpected-meter, it probably falls somewhere between Man Bites Dog and Trump Declines Comment. But on Friday, the Bush administration did something excellent for the environment.

“In a letter obtained by TIME, Bush’s Environmental Protection Agency moved to block a $220 million Army Corps of Engineers flood-control project in the Mississippi Delta, laying the groundwork for the first EPA veto of an Army Corps project since 1990.”

Read the entire article…

This project–often called “the monster that just won’t die”–still needs a few more stabs to the heart. The complete veto process could take a few more months. Stand strong EPA!