The arid grasslands and shrub steppe prairie of the
Columbia Plateau have gradually dwindled as farmers have plowed up
thousands of acres to plant lucrative crops such as potatoes and
onions. The Washington ground squirrel is among the species linked
to this dwindling habitat, and over the past decade the squirrels’
population has dropped by 69 percent. To halt the declines,
environmentalists are now battling a private company’s plan to plow
up 25,000 acres of state land.
In Oregon, much
of the squirrels’ remaining habitat lies within 93,800 acres of
state-owned land that was leased for $2 per acre to Boeing Co. in
1963. The site was intended for a high-tech aerospace center; when
that plan fell through, Boeing subleased the land to Inland Land
Co., an agricultural corporation. To date, more than 30,000 acres
of the state land have been developed, and Inland Land Co. has a
state-approved plan to plow and irrigate another 25,000 acres. This
comes despite the squirrels’ “sensitive” listing under the Oregon
Endangered Species Act.
“This
destruction of Palouse grassland and shrub steppe is totally
dysfunctional ecologically,” says David Dobkin of Oregon’s High
Desert Ecological Research Institute. He says he’s frustrated
because the habitat in question is already publicly owned and could
be protected. Yet the state has agreed to develop the land while it
claims to be searching for salmon solutions, he
says.
Environmentalists’ recent attempt to win
an emergency endangered squirrel listing from the state has failed.
A coalition of environmentalists is suing the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers over its decision to allow Inland Land to pump water from
the Columbia River, because the pumping jeopardizes endangered
salmon and steelhead runs. Under the company’s irrigation plan, it
would use as much Columbia River water as the 800,000 people of
Portland do each year.
” Dan Nailen
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Spare the plow, save the squirrel.
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