Yuba-Sutter levee districts bugged over beetle's status
More than five years after biologists declared the elderberry longhorn beetle no longer a threatened species, two Yuba-Sutter flood control districts are bugged the federal government hasn’t followed suit.
Last week, both Reclamation District 784 and Levee District 1 joined a notice the Pacific Legal Foundation sent to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service giving the agency 60 days to act, or face a lawsuit.
Brandon Middleton, an attorney for the Sacramento-based PLF, said the two agencies as well as private landowners affected by the beetle’s status have waited long enough.
“Our primary concern for these agencies is they have limited financial resources to try to protect the public, and they have to spend significant time and money on elderberry mitigation,” Middleton said.
The notice, dated Jan. 4, points out the finding by federal biologists from September 2006 and, in the PLF’s estimation, a subsequent lack of action by Fish & Wildlife to remove the beetle’s “threatened” status.
“Given the significant constraints imposed on Prospective Plaintiffs by the (valley elderberry longhorn beetle’s) outdated regulatory status as a threatened species, it is imperative that the Service act upon its own 5-year Status Review and Prospective Plaintiffs’ corresponding delisting petition and determine whether the delisting of VELB is warranted,” the notice states.
The service’s Sacramento office did not return a call seeking comment last week, though officials have said they couldn’t comment on a potential suit. The process to delist the beetle is ongoing, they’ve also said.
Steve Fordice, general manager for RD 784, estimates his agency and the Three Rivers Levee Improvement Authority have spent several millions of dollars in recent years to mitigate for possible beetle habitat.
Such mitigation involved not only relocating elderberry bushes from areas where levee work would be done, but finding a place elsewhere to plant them, adding vegetation at the new site like what was at the old site, and maintaining the plants and making sure the property is protected, he said.
“The beetle is now a success, so to continue to require government and private citizens to mitigate seems very expensive and wasteful,” Fordice said.
For the last few years, the potential plaintiffs were willing to work with the federal government to see the delisting process through, Middleton said.
“But it comes to a point where enough’s enough and you have to go to court,” he said.
CONTACT Ben van der Meer at bvandermeer@appealdemocrat.com or 749-4786. Find him on Facebook at /ADbvandermeer or on Twitter at @ADbvandermeer.
