County: Schedule won’t hurt species

Thursday, May 25, 2006 | 7:14 a.m.

A Clark County official said Wednesday that rare species would not be threatened with extinction by what critics have called the slow pace of the county to issue contracts for research on dozens of plants and animals.

Clark County's Multi-Species Habitat Conservation Program covers 78 species and is charged with ensuring the species are not pushed into extinction. Some scientists who expected funding for research programs this summer were dismayed to find that the county would not issue contracts until late summer or early fall, threatening some seasonal research.

Marci Henson, conservation program administrator, defended the county during the first meeting of the program's revamped advisory committee. The new committee includes 12 voting members, among them conservationists and developers.

Henson said last month that the county would need at least three more months to draft contracts with scientists and others doing projects for the conservation program. About $30 million in projects has been approved by federal and local officials.

Failure to draft the contracts this season would not threaten any of the species covered by the conservation plan, Henson said. The county process started with a March 24 notice from the federal government releasing the funds.

Bob Williams, Nevada director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, did not directly respond to the question of how critical the summer research would be for rare species, but said programs for the threatened desert tortoise could especially use the money.

"There are several projects that should be expedited," Williams said.

Committee member Hermi Hiatt, a botanist and conservationist, agreed that some projects should be expedited. She said the summer season could be critical for some species that researchers know little about, such as Clark County's Western burrowing owl, which is under evaluation for inclusion in the program.

Hiatt said, however, that the responsibility for the time issue with the conservation program's projects lies with the federal government. The required approval for the $30 million came about six months later than usual from Interior Secretary Gale Norton.

"This definitely was a chain reaction," Hiatt said. She urged the county to speed up writing contracts for some of the projects. So far, that has been rejected by county officials.

The county has "policies and procedures" to ensure accountability of the projects, Henson said, which prevents expedited contracts. Still, she said, the county is "trying to make the best out of the situation."

She emphasized that there is no indication that individual species, even those that have prompted petitions for emergency protections from the federal government, would become extinct because of the lack of research over one season:

"It's unfortunate to miss a field season, but we're talking about monitoring projects. It's not doing anything to improve the status of species."