SBA Joins Dispute Over Protecting Spotted Owl

A fourth federal agency has joined the dispute over protecting the northern spotted owl, accusing the Fish and Wildlife Service of badly underestimating impacts on the Northwest’s economy.

The Small Business Administration said in a document obtained by the Associated Press that the service’s economic analysis is “sorely inadequate.”

The SBA contends that the service violated a federal act requiring exploration of “less burdensome alternatives” than making millions of acres off limits to logging.

It recommended that the service re-examine the impacts before permanently drawing lines on maps around forests critical to the threatened owl’s survival.

“A more complete analysis will show that the impact on the Pacific Northwest will be rather severe,” the SBA said, predicting job losses in excess of 20,000 as a result of critical habitat designation.

The Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that the region’s timber industry will lose more than 20,000 jobs by 1995, but maintains that only 2,500 are directly attributable to owl habitat designation.

It marks the first time that the SBA has become involved in a quarrel over protection of a threatened or endangered species, said Barry Pineles of the SBA’s Office of Advocacy.

“We do not believe they have adequately estimated the economic impact of the designation of critical habitat,” Pineles said.

The Fish and Wildlife Service declared the owl a threatened species in June, 1990, warning that continued excessive logging of old-growth forests could lead to extinction of the remaining 3,000 pairs.

The service has proposed that 8.2 million acres be designated as critical habitat, banning logging on some forests and restricting it on others across Oregon, Washington and northern California.

A final decision on the boundaries is expected by the end of the year.

Interagency squabbling within the Bush Administration is not new to the plight of the owl. The Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management have adopted conflicting strategies to save the bird.

The Forest Service’s plan is more restrictive, but Fish and Wildlife Service Director John Turner has indicated that even that may not be sufficient because it would allow as much as half of the owl’s population to die before starting to rebound.

The Supreme Court, in a 1978 case involving the snail darter and the Tennessee Valley Authority, ruled that Congress passed the Endangered Species Act “to halt and reverse the trend toward species extinction, whatever the cost.”

But the SBA said in its formal comments that the Fish and Wildlife Service has the authority to balance economics with species protection when mapping critical habitat.