There was a lot of praise thrown about during the May 2 dedication ceremony of the Balcones Canyonlands Conservation Plan (BCCP), which is designed to protect eight endangered species while allowing development to continue in Travis County. The mayor, the county judge, a retired congressman, and the Secretary of the Interior all watched as a federal official signed the 10(A) permit, the essential element in the planned 30,000-acre, $160 million preserve system.
And while the BCCP is an ambitious plan that does deserve some back-slapping, none of the politicos mentioned the Barton Springs Salamander, which may be more endangered than any of the animals being protected by the BCCP. The reason no one talked about the salamander is simple: it's too hot politically. The finalization of the BCCP is a notable achievement for Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, who has been pushing the plan for more than two years. Babbitt can now claim that the Endangered Species Act (ESA), which has been scheduled for reauthorization in Congress for several years, is a workable law, and he can point to the BCCP as proof of that.
But if the salamander gets added to the Endangered Species List (ESL), Babbitt could lose much of the momentum he and the Democrats have gained by pushing the BCCP through. If the salamander is listed, it will likely have to be incorporated into the BCCP, which could draw the ire of local developers and of the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce. And, worse for Babbitt, the listing of the salamander would bring more attention to the ESA and draw out property rights advocates and powerful opponents like Republican U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, who has been highly critical of endangered species laws.
In fact, on the same day that Babbitt was in Austin for the BCCP dedication, Hutchison released a statement through the Republican National Committee calling the habitat plan "an un-constitutional seizure of private-property rights."
After his speech at the dedication, Babbitt was asked about the salamander. "I think we have to, you know, assess all of the issues and sort of reopen the file," he said. "But either way, what we must do is build on the consensus process of BCCP. And that's what I intend to try and do."
While Babbitt tries to decide what to do with the salamander, the ongoing drought has sharply reduced the spring flow at Barton Springs, and the Barton Springs-Edwards Aquifer Conservation District has issued a drought alarm for area residents. Those are not good signs for the salamander.
The earliest recorded specimens of the Barton Springs Salamander (BSS) were collected in 1946. And in the early 1970s, the salamanders were still found near the surface of Barton Springs Pool. Over the next decade and a half, the surface population of the animal nearly disappeared; the BSS has been a candidate for addition to the Endangered Species List since 1982. In January of 1992, two UT scientists, Mark Kirkpatrick and Barbara Mahler, formally petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to add the rare salamander to the list. In June of 1993, the salamander was given an official biological name: Eurycea sosorum, in honor of the supporters of the Save Our Springs ordinance. In an article in the scientific journal Herpetolgica, UT zoologist David Hillis, doctoral candidate Paul Chippindale, and Texas Parks and Wildlife Department biologist Andy Price wrote that the BSS "appears to have one of the smallest ranges of any vertebrate in North America."
In February 1994, the FWS agreed that the salamander should be listed, and proposed to add it to the ESL. The FWS had one year to decide whether or not it was going to add the animal to the list. But when the deadline arrived, Babbitt punted. In a letter to Gov. George Bush, he said he would delay any decision on the salamander for six months. And in May of last year, Texas Natural Resources Conservation Commission Water Policy Director Mark Jordan wrote a letter to the FWS that left biologists and hydrologists in slack-jawed disbelief. Jordan declared that there had been no "material decline" in water quality in Barton Springs since 1976, "Nor do the studies and reports demonstrate a direct, quantifiable relationship between the water quality conditions in Barton Creek and those of the Springs."
Jordan's letter directly contradicted what may be the most definitive study of Barton Springs ever done, a 1986 study by the U.S. Geological Survey which determined that "the quality of water from Barton Springs is more sensitive to the quality of streamflow in Barton Creek than from any other surface recharge source."
And last October, a team of five independent biologists from outside the Austin area completed an intensive survey of the BSS and other salamanders in the Austin area and determined that "threats to salamander viability in Travis County, Texas are both real and growing."
But even if the FWS had wanted to list the salamander immediately after the independent report was completed, the agency would have been held back by a listing moratorium authored by Hutchison, who added a rider to a bill in April, 1995 which prevented the agency from adding any new species to the ESL.
The moratorium on listing was erased last month when President Clinton signed the Omnibus Appropriations Bill. Thus, 243 species that have been proposed for addition to the ESL can be added to the list at any time. But don't hold your breath. Congress gave the FWS $4 million for its endangered species paperwork, half the amount the agency requested. As Babbitt explained, "We have a very limited appropriation. It's going to put us through a lot of issues of priorities and a kind of triage, and we are working on that right now."
The siting of the radioactive waste dump has also become a prominent issue in U.S.-Mexico relations. According to several sources, during a meeting between the U.S. and Mexico last March, the U.S. was forced to back down on its desire to have Mexico reduce the airborne emissions from the coal-fired power plants known as Carbon 1 and 2. The power plants, located near Piedras Negras, are believed to be causing serious reductions in visibility in Big Bend National Park, which lies about 140 miles west of the plants.
When U.S. officials brought up the issue of the power plants, Mexican officials responded by talking about the facility in Sierra Blanca, a few miles north of the Rio Grande. According to one source, "We pulled back on Carbon 2 to satisfy the Mexicans on the radioactive waste dump."