WASHINGTON (AP) -
The Interior Department awarded $70 million in grants Monday to 29 states to
help railroads, utilities, oil and gas drillers and environmental groups find
alternative habitats for endangered species threatened by development.
"Whenever possible, we in the federal government must encourage and empower
states, local communities, tribes, businesses, citizen groups, private
landowners and others to take conservation into their hands," Interior Secretary
Gale Norton told reporters.
Most of the grants are based on agreements with private landowners that
excuse them from killing or harming individual endangered animals, plants and
fish, but only if the long-range recovery prospects for the species aren't
diminished. Those habitat conservation plans must be approved by the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service. The plans were seldom used until
Norton's predecessor, Bruce Babbitt, began emphasizing them during the
Clinton administration, according to Hugh Vickery, an Interior Department
spokesman. Vickery said they provide a good balance between environmental and
business needs.
Vickery said that in return for the mitigation agreements, various
activities, even some that might kill individual protected plants, animals or
fish, will be allowed to go forward.
"But it can't hurt long-term recovery of species," he said.
The grants will allow, for example, oil and gas exploration in Kern County,
Calif., where endangered species are located, and in a hiking-recreation area in
Riverside County, Calif.
They also will clear the way for use of a watershed in Washington by public
utilities and Seattle's municipal water system.
The Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway will get $75,000 to minimize the
effect of its operations on grizzly bears next to Glacier National Park and the
Great Bear Wilderness in Montana.
Interior officials said they turned down about $80 million in grant requests,
but declined to specify them.
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