Official:  Reconsider killing prairie dogs
Wildlife director wants proof animals caused high nitrate levels

09/20/2002   The Dallas Morning News Associated Press

LUBBOCK -- A top Texas Parks and Wildlife Department official says environmental regulators who recently approved Lubbock's plan to kill prairie dogs did so without evidence that the animals are solely to blame for high nitrate levels. In a Sept. 13 letter to his counterpart at the Texas Commission on Environment Quality, Robert Cook, executive director of Parks and Wildlife, asked the commission to revisit its decision and "take a closer look at whether prairie dogs are indeed the problem, or whether other land management alternatives might be more effective in reducing potential pollution." Last week, the state's environmental agency approved the plan to move prairie dogs from the city's sewage treatment farm until the end of the year.  A protected species -- burrowing owls -- use the prairie dogs' vacant burrows to lay their eggs.  The owls migrate away at the end of each year, at which time the plan approved by the state allows the city to begin killing the remaining prairie dogs by poisoning them and igniting propane gas inside their burrows.

In June, the same month the city got a notice of violation about possible groundwater contamination, representatives of the commission, the wildlife department and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service discussed the violation.  At the meeting, Mr. Cook wrote, wildlife officials were concerned about "the lack of evidence" that grazing and burrowing by prairie dogs was the primary cause of increased nitrogen levels on the city's effluent processing farm.  Carol Batterton, a spokeswoman for the commission, said Mr. Cook's letter had just arrived and the executive director was unavailable to comment.  "We just need to take a look at it and have some discussion with the Parks and Wildlife people," she said. The wildlife department assessment, Mr. Cook wrote, is that the prairie dogs might be creating a problem in the areas where effluent is sprayed but don't pose a problem in other areas of the farm.  Dan Dennison, Lubbock's environmental compliance manager, disagreed that there is a lack of evidence and said areas on the farm that are away from where effluent is sprayed serve as sources of continuous reinfestation. "I certainly understand the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department's position," he said. "But we have to look at the long term, and that is in the future we will have little or no ability to manage prairie dogs ... because they will be listed as endangered species in the future.  We have an obligation to protect the groundwater. That is what everybody has missed here."

My gut reaction:  This whole debacle is driven by the desire to rid the area of prairie dogs before the dogs are listed under ESA.  The beneficiaries of the eradication are not the people of Lubbock, because the evidence is clear to all (but the biased City of Lubbock officials) that prairie dogs are not the source of groundwater contamination.  But prairie dogs are hated by the traditional grazing users of those city lands, as is typical for prairie dogs everywhere.

Updated 19 July 2006 .