Audubon Ohio News - February 10, 2003

  • From: "SINGER, Deborah" <DSINGER@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "'audubonoh-news@xxxxxxxxxxxxx'" <audubonoh-news@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Mon, 10 Feb 2003 09:37:30 -0500

Audubon Ohio News - February 10, 2003

CONTENTS
1.  DeWine Comes Through Again for the Arctic
2.  Arctic Explorer Reports to Audubon Chapter
3.  Audubon Ohio Opposes Great Lakes Navigation Project
4.  What's Up with Wetlands?
5.  Birding and Monitoring Workshop:  How You Can Put Your Birding Skills to
Work by 
     Adopting an Important Bird Area
6.  Correction

1.  DEWINE COMES THROUGH AGAIN FOR THE ARCTIC

Ohio Senator Mike DeWine is one of six Republican Senators who signed a
letter opposing any effort to use the congressional budget process to open
up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling.  In so doing, he has
broken with the Bush Administration on this important conservation issue,
and helped to signal that the Administration will face great difficulty in
persuading Congress to approve drilling in the Refuge.

In the last Congress, Sen. DeWine cast a key vote against drilling.  The
threat to the Arctic is even greater in the current Congress.  The Bush
Administration has devised a new strategy of attempting to insert drilling
language in a budget bill, thereby bypassing normal congressional review and
approval procedures.  By signing the letter, Sen. DeWine has put the
Administration on notice that this type of back-door policymaking is not
acceptable.

Senator DeWine needs to hear from Ohioans who approve of his action.  The
Senator's office can be reached by phone (202-224-2315) or through an e-mail
form on his web site (dewine.senate.gov).  


2.  ARCTIC EXPLORER REPORTS TO AUDUBON CHAPTER

The President Rutherford B. Hayes Audubon Chapter got a first-hand account
of the harm that drilling would do in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
At a chapter program in Fremont on Sunday, February 9, Chad Kister of the
Arctic Refuge Defense Campaign presented a slideshow of his one-person tour
of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and surrounding areas.

Kister toured the Arctic the hard way.  He ventured hundreds of miles
through the Refuge and the adjoining Brooks Range solo, using an inflatable
raft and going on foot.  He subsisted on food he could pluck from the land
or catch with a fishing rod.  In the process he documented both the natural
wonders within the Refuge and the damage that has occurred in adjoining
areas where drilling has occurred.

Kister, who is writing a book on his trip, will present his program to the
Clark County Audubon Chapter on February 24.  He has offered to do his
presentation for other Ohio Audubon chapters.  He can be contacted through
his website, www.arcticrefuge.org.


3.  AUDUBON OHIO OPPOSES GREAT LAKES NAVIGATION PROGRAM

If you look up "boondoggle" in the dictionary, you may well find a picture
of a dredge with "Army Corps of Engineers" on the side.  The Corps is
pushing a project to expand navigation channels in the Great Lakes through a
massive dredging project to allow access of more foreign ships that are
currently too large for the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River. This project
threatens the basin's waters, marshes and shorelines that provide
irreplaceable habitat for hundreds of species of fish, migratory birds,
native waterfowl and mammals.
In recent years, progress has been made in cleaning up and restoring the
Great Lakes. Balancing the needs of commercial shipping with the need for
healthy habitat and clean water is important to the region' s economy.  In
this instance, however, the balance clearly tips against the proposed
project.  The project would require dredging hundreds of millions of yards
of Great Lakes channels and St. Lawrence River sediment for deeper, larger
ships. Much of these sediments are laced with toxic mercury and PCBs. The
project could re-release this pollution, lower lake levels, increase
shoreline erosion and destroy critical wetlands and wildlife habitat. 

In addition, increased and larger foreign ships entering the basin could
increase the frequency and diversity of aquatic invasive species introduced
into the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River. Aquatic invasive species are
destroying the Great Lakes environment, crippling Great Lakes fisheries, and
costing taxpayers millions of dollars each year. We need to stop the influx
of invasions now, not facilitate more introductions.

The Great Lakes navigation project threatens to undo much of the progress we
have made in improving Great Lakes water quality and protecting wildlife and
wildlife habitat in the region. It could also harm the region's critical
fishing, recreation and tourism industry.  Audubon Ohio is a co-signer of a
letter to congressional representatives opposing funding for a study that
would be the first step in the project.  We will keep our readers posted on
whether this project is moving forward, and if so, what needs to be done to
stop it.


4.      WHAT'S UP WITH WETLANDS?

In 2001 the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Clean Water Act did
not protect so-called isolated wetlands, i.e., those that were not connected
directly to a navigable waterway, and were connected to interstate commerce
only because they provided habitat to migratory birds.  Many such wetlands
are, of course, "isolated" because of the widespread destruction of wetlands
that has occurred over the past several decades.  While they may be
isolated, they often provide critical habitat for migratory birds.

The Supreme Court did not hold that Congress lacked the authority to protect
isolated wetlands.  Rather, it held that the Clean Water Act, as written,
did not extend to isolated wetlands.  The Court left open the possibility
that Congress could choose to amend the Clean Water Act to extend it to
isolated wetlands.  In the current political climate, however, there is
little prospect of Congress doing so.

The Supreme Court's 2001 decision plainly narrowed the scope of federal
wetlands regulation, but the precise degree to which such regulation was
narrowed was not clear.  The Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency have recently announced an intention to try
to resolve this confusing by developing new regulations defining what kinds
of wetlands are subject to federal regulations.  The process of doing so
will be long and drawn out.  For the moment, these agencies are simply
soliciting comments on what form the regulations should take.  After
receiving those comments, the agencies will propose a set of draft
regulations, and invite further comments.  Eventually the agencies will
release a final set of regulations that will then guide the federal
regulation of wetlands until either Congress changes the law or the agencies
go through another round of regulatory drafting.

Audubon Ohio is monitoring this situation, and will advise its readers on
how to participate as it progresses.  In particular, we will notify readers
when the draft regulations are proposed, and provide instructions on when
and how to comment on them.  


5.  BIRDING AND MONITORING WORKSHOP:  HOW YOU CAN PUT YOUR BIRDING SKILLS TO
WORK BY ADOPTING AN IMPORTANT BIRD AREA 
     
    ********************************************** 
* WHERE: The Wilderness Center, Stark County, 1 mile west of Wilmot, Ohio. 

* WHEN:  Saturday, March 8, 2003 from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. 

* COST:  $10.00 / person (includes handouts, snacks, and lunch). 

* MEALS: Provided, vegetarian options will be available. 

* REGISTRATION DEADLINE: March 3, 2003. 

* INFORMATION and REGISTRATION: Call Audubon Ohio at 614-224-3303 or e-mail
John Ritzenthaler at jritzenthaler@xxxxxxxxxxx
       
    ********************************************** 
Count, own, act ...use your birding skills to count birds, take ownership of
an Important Bird Area, and act for bird conservation by becoming involved
in a program that has worldwide scope -- the Important Bird Areas (IBAs)
program.  Nearly 100 IBAs have been identified around Ohio. IBAs are areas
critical to bird conservation. Visit our web site at
www.audubon.org/states/oh/oh for information about IBAs.

Audubon Ohio and the Canton Audubon Society are presenting a monitoring
workshop to enlist birders for surveying birds on their favorite IBAs. We
hope that individuals or groups will adopt an IBA and engage in some form of
regular bird censusing suited to the site. This workshop is scheduled for
Saturday, March 8, 2003 from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. It will be held at The
Wilderness Center, an IBA in Stark County, Ohio. The outdoors agenda will
include methods for observing birds and conducting surveys of your favorite
sites. We will cover point counts, transect counts, area searches, nest
searches, and bird banding plus an exciting new web-based data entry system
called E-bird. Participants will be able to volunteer to census birds on
IBAs in Ohio and see their data used in conservation on these sites. All
skill levels are welcome.
 

6.  CORRECTION

In the last newsletter we incorrectly identified Ohio Citizen Action as the
group whose research on oil and gas drilling in Lake Erie prompted Governor
Taft to declare the Lake off limits to drilling.  The research was actually
done by the Ohio Public Interest Research Group.

****************************************************************************
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