Change in Endangered Species Act draws concern from Utah environmentalists

SALT LAKE CITY — Several environmental groups are engaged in a lawsuit with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over what they consider illegal changes to the Endangered Species Act that remove protections for habitats of endangered species.

"It is deeply disturbing that this has happened," said Deeda Seed, senior Utah campaigner for the Center for Biological Diversity. "It cuts the heart out of this law that is designed to protect these species that are imperiled. And this is a law that has a huge success rate."

A Sept. 14th memo from Brian Nesvik, director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, adjusts the definition of harm so that it no longer includes indirect or accidental harm to endangered species.

Seed said it's a sharp diversion from how the rule has been interpreted and enforced for several decades.

"You can't protect a species without protecting the environment that it lives in," Seed said. "Since it was enacted in the early 70s and signed into law by President Nixon, it has a success rate of protecting species to approximately 99% of species listed."

Seed worries the move could push now-threatened species in Utah, like the June sucker, Utah prairie dog and desert tortoise, in the wrong direction if their habitats are destroyed out of ignorance or omission of any considerations for their preservation.

"Mostly the harm happens in developers bulldozing over prairie dog habitat, or off-road vehicles driving over a desert tortoise," Seed explained. "And they're not intending to do it necessarily. They're just not paying attention."

In a press release, Department of the Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said the change would ease the burden on American families and businesses.

"That approach turned routine activity into a regulatory trap, drove up costs that impacted people's lives and expanded federal authority beyond what Congress intended," Burgum explained. "This action restores common sense, respects private property, provides much-needed certainty for landowners and follows the statute Congress actually passed."

Seed said attorneys with The Center for Biological Diversity had been expecting a policy change by the Trump administration for some time.

"I don't think they expected it to be quite this bad," she said. "[They] expected bad. But this is pretty grim."

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