Environmental group sues feds over protection of fish

By Steve Green

Published Friday, Jan. 29, 2010 | 10:37 a.m.

Updated Friday, Jan. 29, 2010 | 3:11 p.m.

An environmental group sued the federal government Thursday, charging it's moving too slowly on a petition to protect a species of fish found in desert streams in Nevada, Idaho, Utah and Wyoming.

Wildearth Guardians filed suit in U.S. District Court for Nevada against the U.S. Interior Department.

At issue is Wildearth's July 2007 petition with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which is part of the Interior Department, to protect the minnow, called the Northern Leatherside Chub, as a threatened or endangered species.

Wildearth's suit alleges violations of the Endangered Species Act. It says the Fish and Wildlife Service in August 2009 found Wildearth had "presented substantial scientific and commercial information indicating that the listing of the species might be warranted."

"FWS (the Fish and Wildlife Service) found that multiple threats may be imperiling the chub, including: habitat loss and degradation from water developments, stream alterations, siltation, livestock and non-native brown trout," the lawsuit says.

Despite this initial finding, the agency has failed to meet deadlines to make a final determination on the decision regarding the chub, the lawsuit complains.

Wildearth says the chub, which generally measures 3 to 5 inches in length, lives in the Bonneville Basin and part of the upper Snake River drainage and that its populations have declined as the species requires running water and can't survive in lakes and reservoirs.

"The chub is imperiled by: habitat destruction and degradation resulting from irrigation, water diversion, and road crossings; non-native fish that prey on and compete with the chub; and increasingly small, fragmented populations, which are at risk from demographic factors and catastrophic climate events such as fire, flood and drought. Climate change impacts may also threaten the chub. An additional threat to the chub is the current lack of adequate regulatory protection due to water use laws within the chub’s range," the suit says.

Wildearth also sees the declining populations of the chub as an indication of bigger environmental issues in the West.

"Water is life in the arid 'sagebrush sea' covering the majority of Nevada. No creature knows this more than the native fish surviving in the area’s remaining streams and rivers. In the narrowest view this lawsuit is an effort to save one of those native fish, the Northern Leatherside Chub from extinction. In a larger view, this lawsuit is about the health of the sagebrush sea’s life sustaining rivers and what this small fish may be trying to tell us about our management of this precious resource," the lawsuit says.

The Interior Department and Fish and Wildlife Service have not yet formally responded to the lawsuit. A Fish and Wildlife Service spokeswoman on Friday said the agency was still reviewing the petition for protection of the Leatherside Chub, but couldn’t say when the study would be completed. The spokeswoman, Ann Carlson, declined comment on the allegation the agency has missed deadlines to make a decision on the petition.

The agency announced in August that among 206 animal and plant species Wildearth was seeking protection for, it had determined 29 -- including the Leatherside Chub -- may warrant federal protection and that it would undertake a more thorough review of those 29 species.