Work on “the last great federal
dam” is under way: The Bureau of Reclamation has
begun building the pumping plant for the Animas-La Plata Project
outside of Durango, Colo. (HCN, 8/27/01: A-LP gets federal A-OK).
The station will pump Animas River water 510 feet uphill and two
miles west to a reservoir site in Ridges Basin.
There are some happy fish in Washington’s
Goldsborough Creek. Removal of a dam in 2001 has allowed
fish to swim back into 25 miles of the river. Since the $4.8
million dam removal, biologists have been finding high numbers of
coho and chum salmon and cutthroat trout there for the first time
since 1885 (HCN, 9/24/01: River of dreams).
Someone has shot and killed another Mexican gray
wolf in Arizona’s Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest
(HCN, 1/29/01″ A slow comeback for Mexican wolves). The U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service and the Center for Biological Diversity are
both offering rewards for information on the shooting, which is the
11th since the pack was reintroduced in 1998.
Jawless-fish lovers were disappointed in April
when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service refused to protect four
species of lamprey under the Endangered Species Act (HCN, 3/17/03:
Parasite could help save salmon). Officials with the agency told
conservationists that there’s no money for listing this year.
In early March, the Energy Department
issued a “stop work” order to Bechtel SAIC,
the lead contractor at Yucca Mountain’s nuclear-storage
facility, after a team of private auditors revealed technical flaws
in the Quality Assurance program (HCN, 10/28/02: Nuclear dump may
be supersized). But work never stopped; instead, the Energy
Department removed three of the four auditors from their positions.
The Bush administration’s plan to
outsource federal jobs is meeting some high-level
resistance (HCN, 12/9/02: The push is on to privatize federal
jobs). The superintendent at Glacier National Park has spoken out
against privatization, and in an April memo to Interior Department
officials, Fran Mainella, director of the National Park Service,
points out that the cost of studying outsourcing is so expensive
that it will have “serious consequences” for visitor
services and seasonal operations.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline The Latest Bounce.
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