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Protections stand in way of progress

By Andy Caldwell
Feb. 2, 2006, The Lompoc Record

I was not at all shocked by the news last week that the Center for Biological Diversity is trying to eliminate the use of some 66 pesticides in deference to the Red Legged Frog. That is because a number of years ago I stumbled upon their Web site where they plainly spelled out their agenda for all the world to see. Unfortunately, not all the world is interested, but they should be.

You may not be altogether familiar with the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) because we typically focus on another center, the Environmental Defense Center (EDC) which is headquartered in Santa Barbara. These two organizations are very similar and they work together on occasion. The CBD seems to be a much more focused organization with a great emphasis upon endangered species throughout the range of Southwestern States, whereas the EDC delves into a host of land use issues including endangered species, oil, housing projects and pesticide uses with a primary focus on our Central Coast region. Together these two organizations are responsible for much of the abuse wrought upon our community by their ability to distort and subvert what would otherwise be good laws.

The Endangered Species Act was created to ensure that species do not go extinct when we as a society could prevent this from occurring by being careful with how we interface with nature. Fair enough. The original thought was that builders, developers, miners, foresters, ranchers and farmers would survey the land and if an endangered species were present, it would be relocated to a safe and suitable new home. The original intention in my opinion was win-win. The project moved forward and the species wasn't harmed. But then certain activists, whose original interest in life was to prevent development of any type, figured out how to use the Endangered Species Act as the death knell of what we used to call progress.

The first thing these folks did was start petitioning the government to protect each and every so-called sub-species they could think of, defined by geography, not genetic makeup, even if the main species wasn't endangered. For instance, salamanders are ubiquitous and so are tiger salamanders, but the CBD and the EDC claim that Santa Barbara County tiger salamanders are endangered.

The next thing they do is sue to designate as critical to the species as much land as possible that could possibly sustain the species, regardless of whether the species is present or not. Finally, they then try to control what is happening on adjacent lands as if that will have an impact upon the critical habitat. Pretty soon, people for miles around are impacted even though the subsequent threat to the species is only remote and theoretical.

The EDC doesn't want ranchers to be able to let their cows graze the land anywhere near salamander habitat. They are afraid the cows may step on the salamanders even though the salamanders live under ground for nearly their entire life span. The CBD doesn't want farmers to be able to use pesticides near the Santa Maria, Santa Ynez and Sisquoc Rivers because they are concerned about the frogs. This despite the fact that these rivers are typically dry and therefore frog-less much of the year.

You see, the fact is the EDC and the CBD don't really care about the species, they want to control land use. For there is a simple and direct route to the recovery of the species that wouldn't entail setting aside millions of acres of private land for this or that species. It wouldn't require controlling this or that land use. Because much of the western United States, including half of the County of Santa Barbara, is owned and preserved by the federal government, there is plenty of land available for the recovery of species. That is not the issue.

Nowhere was this more clear than in the Pacific Northwest where some enterprising folks came up with a solution to this whole debacle a few years back as they were dealing with theoretically endangered salmon stocks. They started mass producing them from natural stock in a hatchery. There is a novel idea! Start raising the animals and releasing them into the wild and problem solved! After all, the feds used this model with the condors. Why not use it for fish and frogs and salamanders and flies and thistles and you name it?

The enviros, including those that work with the federal government, knew that they would lose control of land use if they lost their ability to manipulate the plight of the salmon, so they ordered the hatchery salmon to be slaughtered before they were released into the wild. Genetically, the slaughtered fish were identical to their wild brethren because they came from the same wild stock. That made no difference to the activists, does it matter to you?

Andy Caldwell is executive director of COLAB and a 38-year resident of the Central Coast. You may reach him at 929-3148 or by e-mail at colab@utech.net.