A group of over 40 national and Western organizations earlier this week signed on to a formal letter expressing support for a move by federal agencies to redefine the term “harm” under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA).
The coalition letter – led by the Family Farm Alliance and the Milk Producers Council – includes organizations who collectively represent thousands of farmers and ranchers, businesses and communities, and local and regional public water agencies that supply municipal water to millions of Western urban, suburban, and rural residents.
The ESA prohibits direct actions that result in the “take” of listed species – actions that actually kill or injure the species. The coalition letter outlines how the current agency definition of “harm” is broader in scope than the statute. It encompasses often ill-defined indirect impacts on species, which opens the door to agency interpretation – and more regulation – with no bright line to avoid arbitrary enforcement.
For example, irrigation water users in the federal Klamath Project are hundreds of miles away from the ocean. Yet, they are regulated based on purported “take” of the Southern Resident killer whale. This attenuated logic consists of regulation of flows for Klamath River Chinook salmon, a non-listed fish species, which, during some days in a year, make up a small percentage of the diet of the Southern Resident killer whale.
In essence, food producers in California and Oregon are assumed to “harm” whales, and, on that basis, the terms and conditions of incidental take statements place strict constraints on their water use.
The coalition letter emphasizes that by focusing on the definition of “harm”, tenuous and speculative regulatory oversight and related litigation would be reduced or eliminated.
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Farm Progress this week published a related guest column authored by Alliance Executive Director Dan Keppen which explains that, while all of us have a strong affinity for our national environmental heritage, the regulatory implementation of the 52-year-old ESA has created challenges.
“While not the “silver bullet” solution to ESA reform, this proposed rule will definitely help to restore common sense and bring federal agency implementation of the ESA more in line with the law and Congressional intent,” Mr. Keppen wrote.
Photo of bald eagle on wheel line courtesy of Klamath Drainage District.
