New star of the bird world stars in lawsuit, too

In February 2004, Gallagher and another birder joined Sparling on an expedition to the swamp and saw an ivory-bill for himself. The ensuing hoopla was unprecedented in ornithological circles. Additional expeditions and sightings followed. They culminated in an April 28, 2005, article in the journal Science by Cornell researchers and an official announcement by U.S. Interior Secretary Gail Norton on the same day that the ivory-bill was not extinct.

Norton pledged $10 million in federal funds for more research to confirm the existence of the bird. With many trees in the Big Woods now bare in the dead of winter, public and private efforts to capture photos and video of an ivory-bill are currently at a fever pitch. Despite the Cornell researchers’ presentation of numerous sightings, audio recordings of what they say are the woodpecker’s distinctive “double knock” and its “kent” call and one bit of grainy video footage of an alleged ivory-bill in flight, there are experts who remain skeptical that any of the birds are still alive.

But Norton’s announcement was good enough for the National Wildlife Federation and its Arkansas affiliate to demand that the corps halt work immediately on an early construction phase of Grand Prairie, a $35 million pumping station on the White River at DeValls Bluff.

In their lawsuit, the groups say that environmental studies for Grand Prairie were done years before the ivory-bill was rediscovered and that federal law requires new analysis, either a supplemental environmental assessment or an environmental impact statement as mandated by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

Stressing that this “is a completely different case” from other environmental bids to shut Grand Prairie down, NWF senior counsel John Kostyack told MSNBC that his group has three fears for the bird’s future: Water withdrawals will change the ivory-bill’s habitat in harmful ways, perhaps killing off some trees or other vegetation vital for its survival; construction of the pump station and associated pipelines will destroy habitat; and increased noise and human activity could also harm the birds.

Seeking an injunction
At Monday’s hearing, before U.S. District Judge G. Thomas Eisele, Kostyack is seeking an injunction to halt work on the pumping station while the additional environmental studies are performed. He believes that if new studies are done, “it would show all the harmful impacts, and that itself would sink the project and it wouldn't ever go back to court. We think that's the reason they didn't do one to begin with."

That’s “just jumping the gun,” says corps biologist Lambert. “Right now it’s just premature to determine if we need to do another NEPA document” because “there’s no reason to believe that we’d have any adverse affect on the woodpecker. … At this time, we just know that the ivory-billed woodpecker was discovered 14 miles from there and that we have some potential habitat.”

Lambert and Grand Prairie project manager Paul Hamm point out that the corps did stop major work on the pumping station last spring once officials learned that ivory-bills were in the region. But their “biological assessment” showed no immediate threat to the birds.

As to the plaintiffs’ specific concerns, Lambert says the corps has worked with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which oversees endangered species, to develop “a plan to monitor the health of the bottomland hardwood forest,” considered prime ivory-bill habitat, as the project moves forward. Pipelines and canals will follow existing roads, avoiding woods “wherever possible.” The pumping station is being constructed in a former farm field where “machinery’s been running … for years” and it is “right by a major highway.”

Hamm says that an injunction as a result of the lawsuit will “obviously add cost and time to the project,” but right now he expects Grand Prairie to begin delivering water by 2010.

‘Truly a national treasure’
Kostyack is happy to have the bird as the centerpiece of the new legal action because all of the publicity around the ivory-bill “helps to highlight this ecosystem, which is not known around the country. It is truly a national treasure."

Meanwhile, Cornell’s Gallagher, who has now published “The Grail Bird” about the hunt for the ivory-bill, says it has been “a difficult year” in the bid for new sightings. “The water level is the lowest it’s been in years” in the swamps and bayous of the Big Woods, and “a lot of places, you can’t even get a canoe in there.”

Unfamiliar with the lawsuit that uses his ornithological obsession as its poster boy, Gallagher nevertheless backs as much environmental study as possible: “We don’t know why these birds are still there, so you don’t want to tamper with the hydrology of the area.”

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