New star of the bird world stars in lawsuit, too

Mike Stuckey Senior news editor • Profile • E-mail

As scientists debate whether the ivory-billed woodpecker, once widely assumed to have been extinct for decades, still haunts the Big Woods of Arkansas, environmentalists have enlisted the bird as a key soldier in their fight against a massive irrigation project.

A lawsuit to be heard Monday in federal court in Little Rock asks that work be halted on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Grand Prairie Area Demonstration Project until further environmental studies evaluate its potential effects on the woodpecker.

The $319 million project, which the corps says will save tapped-out groundwater aquifers in a 242,000-acre agricultural region, is “a recipe for disaster” for the bird, says Lisa Swann of the National Wildlife Federation, a plaintiff in the suit.

Not so, says corps biologist Ed Lambert, who maintains that a “biological assessment” done last spring determined Grand Prairie is unlikely to harm the woodpecker.

The irrigation project has been on the table since the mid-1980s, when studies showed that groundwater aquifers in the area, which lies in east-central Arkansas, were being depleted by rice growers. To solve that, the corps is working with farmers to build reservoirs on their land and elsewhere that will be filled via a canal and pipeline network with water pumped from the White River.

The corps says that in addition to helping replenish groundwater supplies, the project will create new waterfowl and shorebird habitat and food supply, reintroduce thousands of acres of native grasses and slow the depletion of hardwood forests.

‘Mammoth sucking machine’
But Swann’s group and others have long fought the Grand Prairie project as a federal boondoggle that poses serious environmental threats and squanders tax dollars to deliver huge subsidies to farmers. This “mammoth sucking machine” would hurt wetlands, degrade water quality and threaten species in the region from ducks to mussels, the National Wildlife Federation says in one publication about Grand Prairie.

The region is dear to the hearts of conservationists, hunters and other outdoors enthusiasts. Comprising more than half a million acres, less than a tenth of their original size and mostly in islands of trees surrounded by farmland, the Big Woods include the Cache and White River National Wildlife Refuges.

Previous legal actions to block the Grand Prairie project on environmental and jurisdictional issues have failed. So have political entreaties to block state and federal funding for Grand Prairie.

Enter the ivory-billed woodpecker, always rare, but presumed extinct for half a century by most ornithologists. Reported sightings of the 20-inch-long black-and-white birds since the 1940s had drawn derision from many experts since ivory-bills bear a strong resemblance to the smaller and rather common pileated woodpecker.

But the possibility that some ivory-bills were still digging beetles and grubs from the bottomland hardwood forests of Arkansas had long fascinated some birders.

Chief among them was Tim Gallagher, editor of Living Bird magazine, published by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Gallagher had become fascinated with the ivory-bill story in the 1970s and began working on a book about them in 2001. His research led him to dozens of people who claimed to have seen an ivory-bill, including Gene Sparling, who said he spotted a red-crested male of the species while one on a kayak outing in an eastern Arkansas bayou.

MORE FROM ENVIRONMENT

Environment Section Front

Calif. requires ships to cut pollution Climate study: Nevada faces drought Mystery of Florida's dying palms Shipping company charged in S.F. spill Oil shale under Rockies sparks battle Green cars in line for better batteries GM, utilities join to study electric car’s impact Solar-power pioneer circles back Designers add green touch to styling See these must-visit spots before it's too late Environment Section Front   Add Environment headlines to your news reader: