| Senator Feinstein Turns Her Back on the Desert Tortoise |
10/14/1999: Today's Riverside Press Enterprise reports that in an astonishing about face, Senator Diane Feinstein has signed on to a deal with republican Congressman Jerry Lewis that could lead to the US army expanding the Fort Irwin National Training Center into the Superior Valley. This proposed expansion threatens the very survival of the desert tortoise in the west Mojave.
Senator Feinstein apparently took this outlandish step to secure Lewis's support for funding the Wildlands Conservancy/Catellus/Federal Government land purchase deal that was announced earlier this year but held up when Lewis secured a $0 appropriation for the purchase in a House appropriations bill.
According to the Press Enterprise article, Senator Feinstein said "There is a certain trade-off,... it's half a million acres
that are going to be protected for all time."
Missing from this deal are due consideration of both the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and public input through the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) process. Whether or not the impact of this proposed southwesterly expansion of Fort Irwin into habitat designated as CRITICAL for the desert tortoise could be mitigated (which seems distinctly unlikely), it is clearly unacceptable for the proposed expansion to be mitigated by a purchase of land outside of the affected recovery unit. The acquisition of non-tortoise habitat or even actual habitat in the middle of a National Park is irrelevant to the tortoise situation in the west Mojave.
If this deal is allowed to bear fruit it could very well cause the extirpation of the desert tortoise from all lands west of Barstow.
What can you do to help?
Please write to President Clinton and urge him to veto the Department of Interior Appropriations Bill. There are some indications that he is willing to do this, so your voice may help. Tell him that backroom deals like this are unacceptable. The normal ESA and NEPA processes must be followed if any expansion of Fort Irwin is to occur.
Write to:
The Honorable William Jefferson Clinton,
President of the United States
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20500
You might like to send a copy of your letter to Senator Feinstein.
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