Eleventh Circuit Wades into the Everglades on ESA Issues, Miccosukee Tribe v. United States, No. 08-10799
The Eleventh Circuit has waded, again, into the ongoing debates over restoration of the Everglades. In addressing yet another lawsuit filed by the Miccosukee Tribe, the Court largely upheld the Fish & Wildlife Service’s delicate balance between the competing and inconsistent habitat needs of the Cape Sable seaside sparrow and the Everglade Snail kite, both endangered species. The seaside sparrow needs stable low water levels below a certain water control structure; the kite’s habitat is destroyed by the resulting rising water levels in the impoundment. The FWS issued a biological opinion allowing the Corps of Engineers to operate the structure to avoid extinction of the sparrow and to conduct an incidental take of the kite. While largely affirming the agency, the Eleventh Circuit reversed on the issue of the trigger that would require initiation of consultation under Section 7 and, along the way, made new law in this circuit on several important issues.
First, the court rejected the tribe’s argument, often advanced by conservation groups in ESA litigation, that the ESA requires that FWS “give the benefit of the doubt to the species.” The court held that this language, taken from a conference committee report, does not mean that the FWS is required to issue a jeopardy opinion if the evidence is evenly balanced between likely jeopardy and likely no jeopardy. Rather, the Eleventh Circuit explained, the language was intended to prevent FWS from shirking its consultation duties by relying on scientific uncertainty, but did not require any substantive result. The court held that “the need to give a species the benefit of the doubt cannot stand alone as a challenge to a biological opinion.”
Continue Reading...SALMON WARS IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST
Each year thousands of salmon and steelhead protected under the Endangered Species Act (“ESA”) migrate up and down the Columbia River and its tributaries and into the Pacific Ocean as part of the species’ cycle of life. Seemingly, each year armies of lawyers migrate to federal court to argue whether the federal government is carrying out its obligations to protect these species under the ESA. “As part of the modern cycle of life in the Columbia River system, each year brings litigation to the federal courts of the Northwest over the operation of the Federal Columbia River System (“FRCPS”) and, in particular, the effects of system operation on the anadromous salmon and steelhead protected by the Endangered Species Act.” National Wildlife Federation v. National Marine Fisheries Service, 422 F.3d 782 (9th Cir. 2005).
2008 is no exception as the National Wildlife Federation, the state of Oregon and the Nez Perce Tribe have again filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court of Oregon against the federal government for allegedly failing to carry out their obligations under the ESA in the operation of the FRCPS. The precipitating event for the 2008 lawsuit, is a 2008 Biological Opinion authored by NOAA Fisheries pursuant to Section 7 of the ESA opining that if the action agencies, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (“COE”) and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (“BOR”) carry out a comprehensive reasonable and prudent alternative (“RPA”) then jeopardy to the listed species and adverse modification to critical habitat will be avoided.
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