Effort To Save The Alabama Sturgeon Gets Under Way

July 7, 2009

Release from: Sean Reilly
Press-Register (Alabama)

In a quiet coda to a once noisy controversy, a plan to help rescue the endangered Alabama sturgeon has gone into effect without further objections from business forces that battled federal efforts to preserve the rare fish.

"We don't really have much option at this point," said Jerry Sailors, secretary/treasurer of the Alabama-Tombigbee Rivers Coalition, which includes Alabama Power Co. and industries that use the state's inland waterway system.

Whether the final plan will bolster the sturgeon's long-term fortunes is a separate question.

"It's better than not having it," said Ray Vaughan, a Montgomery environmental lawyer active in efforts to protect the imperiled fish. "If you wanted me to quantify how much better, it ain't much."

Although either side could have sued to force changes, Vaughan said, "it's real hard to win a case like this."

Coincidentally, state and federal researchers last month lost touch with the only known sturgeon in the wild after the battery in its surgically implanted sonic tag failed, officials said Monday.

"We are no longer actively tracking it," said Bill Pearson, field supervisor at the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's Alabama field office in Daphne.

The final version of the sturgeon "critical habitat" plan, which was required by a federal court order, was published last month and formally took effect Thursday, said Jeff Powell, a Fish & Wildlife Service biologist at the Daphne office.

The plan covers 326 miles of channel in the Alabama and lower Cahaba rivers, deemed essential for the sturgeon's survival, and will require consultation with the Fish & Wildlife Service for any federally sanctioned activities that could significantly affect river flows, water chemistry or the stability of the river channel.

In response to earlier complaints from Alabama Power and others, however, service officials softened language dictating an average minimum river flow.

The habitat plan comes more than nine years after the Fish & Wildlife Service put the sturgeon on the endangered list. It was delayed by a 2001 legal challenge from the rivers coalition, asserting that the sturgeon was not a distinct species.

Judges at both the trial and appellate court levels rejected that argument, but the lawsuit ended only last year when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to take the case.

In a public relations battle, coalition members also argued that listing the sturgeon as endangered would have put the state's economy in peril by restricting river dredging.

Since the listing, opponents have been unable to point to any resulting job losses or other harm. An economic analysis released early this year by the Fish & Wildlife Service predicted almost no long-term impact.

Scientists implanted the tracking tag after the fish was netted in April 2007 below Claiborne Lock and Dam on the lower Alabama River. Although they learned much about the sturgeon's habits, the fish never led them to more.

"It was inevitable that we were going to lose contact with the fish," Pearson said. "The benefit was we got two years' worth of data."

Researchers intend to keep looking, he said.