The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wants a federal judge to
delay a lawsuit
challenging its analysis of the Rock Creek mine's impacts on threatened
grizzly bears and bull trout, suggesting changes might be warranted.
The analysis, completed in December 2000, concluded the mine
would
jeopardize grizzly bear populations. But it stopped short of objecting
to the
mine as long as mining permits require adequate measures to minimize
wildlife
impacts.
Partly based on that analysis, the Forest Service and the Montana
Department of Environmental Quality issued those permits last
month.
"They concluded that the mine can somehow be reconciled
with the grizzly
bear population in the Cabinet-Yaak and the bull trout up there,"
said Sanjay
Narayan, staff attorney for Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund.
Representing eight conservation groups, Earthjustice filed
a lawsuit last
August challenging the service's biological opinion.
The wildlife agency filed the formal request for a delay "to
re-evaluate the
analysis and conclusions."
Ann Vandehey of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said the
agency mainly
intends to fortify the rationale for its decisions.
"We thought that the litigants brought up some points
that ... some of our
analysis in the opinion is not clear," Vandehey said. "So
we are going back in
our analysis to see if we can state things more clearly."
Vandehey did not rule out the possibility that the service
might end up with
new conclusions in its biological opinion.
"Certainly, we are going to try to more clearly state our rationale."
However, Narayan said the environmental groups are suspicious
of a delay
because it appears the government might be trying to develop a
"rearguard
action" to defend its conclusions.
The environmental groups contend the mine, which would go under
the
Cabinet Mountain Wilderness east of the Idaho border, would impact
the
area's grizzly and trout population.
| [Home] [About Us]
[Archives] [Classifieds]
[Datebook]
[Eastern Idaho]
[Idahomall] [Letters to the editor] [Local News 8] [Privacy Policy] [Register] [Stocks] [Subscribe] [Talkback] [Town Forum] [Wallpaper] [Weather] [Webmaster] [Yellowstone] |