WildEarth Guardians

Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Agency accused of botching efforts to save fish

Two former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employees claimed Monday the agency willfully violated the Endangered Species Act by letting the Rio Grande run dry at inappropriate times -- a threat to the endangered Rio Grande silvery minnow
Contact: Tim Korte The Associated Press

Albuquerque, NM - Two former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employees claimed Monday the agency willfully violated the Endangered Species Act by letting the Rio Grande run dry at inappropriate times - a threat to the endangered Rio Grande silvery minnow.

Zach Simpson and Keith Basham also said the agency routinely suppressedscientific information regarding the number of dead fish discovered from 2002 to 2004 - keeping the number of fish killed by water operations within allowable limits.

The silvery minnow is deemed one of the key barometers for measuring the river’s health.

In one instance in 2003, Simpson claimed a contract employee found five dead minnows but was advised by a Fish and Wildlife supervisor to throw them into willow shrubs to conceal their deaths.

"He (the supervisor) said those fish weren’t collected under our chain of custody," Simpson recalled in a telephone interview. "But it was pretty clear what had happened."

At the time, Simpson said the agency was approaching a 250-fish threshold for the so-called "take" - the allowable limit for dead fish. He suggested the supervisor didn’t want to exceed the limit.

"He said, ‘We can’t keep them. Just throw them away,’ " Simpson said.

Fish and Wildlife Service spokeswoman Elizabeth Slown said those fish were discarded because the contractor failed to follow procedures for documenting locations where they were found.

She also disputed any suggestion that the fish’s numbers have dwindled and said flooding this spring has dramatically improved habitat for the minnows because it simulated the river’s natural cycle.

"The minnow is doing abundantly well in the middle Rio Grande right now,"Slown said.

She said 563,234 minnows were rescued from dry stretches of the river this year, compared with 12,700 at the same time last year.

Basham complained about a lack of cooperation between federal and stateagencies that work to keep the Rio Grande flowing.

He said 17 miles of the river dried up in July 2004, exceeding the allowable length by 13 miles.

Basham remembered his struggles to discourage irrigators from pumping the little water that remained in the river as federal officials tried to maintain flow.

"It makes it very difficult for us to do conservation work under those conditions ," he said.

"It takes the morale out of the group when you don’t have everybodyhelping."

Slown, however, said the river dried over that stretch because a conservancy district employee assigned to monitor a gate accidentally left it open. Water flowed into a diversion channel, and the stretch of river dried two days before a span where low river levels were to be allowed.

"You can’t go and re-wet the river because somebody left a gate open," Slown said. "Saying the river will be wet on these dates and dry on those dates is not an exact science."

Simpson and Basham chose an unusual forum to make their claims: a news release issued by Santa Fe-based WildEarth Guardians, an environmentalist group.

During their time with the Fish and Wildlife Service, Simpson said the two were discouraged from discussing their work with environmentalists or journalists.

He said they regularly took concerns to superiors but never felt those issues were addressed appropriately by toplevel managers.

"Sad to say, but this is the only way in which these concerns could be voiced," Simpson said.

The news release described Simpson and Basham as "biologists" who had worked for the Fish and Wildlife Service, but Slown said the two were deemed "biological technicians."

"It’s an important distinction, basically involving the scope of duties and their job descriptions," she said. "It’s like being the lab technician compared to the doctor." Simpson and Basham left the agency to pursue other opportunities. Simpson is working on a doctoral degree in philosophy in California, while Basham is training to become a paramedic in Albuquerque.

Copyright 2005 The New Mexican - Reprinted with permission