washington – democratic lawmakers beat back a series of republican amendments wednesday before advancing bills to restrict mining around the grand canyon and on tribal lands in arizona and new mexico.

in a sometimes emotional meeting, the house natural resources committee gave preliminary approval to bills banning mining on 1 million acres around the grand canyon, taking uranium off the list of “critical minerals” and setting a 10-mile mining buffer around chaco canyon.

the approval came after three hours of attempted amendments by republicans, who said the bills in their current form are doomed in the senate.

“the three bills we are marking up today are going nowhere,” rep. rob bishop, r-utah, said at the opening of the hearing. “they’re not going to be considered in the senate. they’re not going to be signed by the president. we are simply spinning our wheels once again.”

republicans said the mining bills will hurt the local economy while standing in the way of national and economic security for the u.s. as a whole.

but rep. deb haaland, d-new mexico, pointed to the cultural and sacred sites that would be protected by the bills, noting that tourism and outdoor recreation offer greater economic potential for the region than mining would.

“grand canyon national park was responsible for $667 million in consumer spending around the park and supports over 7,000 local jobs,” she said during the hearing, adding that a bureau of land management report found that mining would only support about 295 jobs in the region.

more importantly, haaland said, the measures will protect the health of area residents after decades of mining on the navajo nation left a “toxic burden” that shows up in higher risks of cancer.

“we cannot allow people to suffer from these preventable impacts simply to do the bidding of the mining industry,” she said in a statement released wednesday.

the bills passed out of committee on mostly party-line votes, that followed mostly party-line rejections of 14 amendments, the majority of which were proposed by rep. paul gosar, r-prescott.

gosar argued that the bill prohibiting mining on federal land around the grand canyon alone would mean the loss of up to 4,000 potential jobs and billions of dollars worth of economic activity and tax revenues for the region.

“it’s copper, it’s mining, it’s where you get true wealth to come from,” gosar said.

the uranium bill would reverse a trump administration plan that put it on a list of non-fuel minerals that are critical to the nation’s economy and defense, and could be threatened if imports from other countries were cut off.

president donald trump ordered the departments of interior and defense to develop the list in 2017, and the commerce department last month released a plan for ensuring a reliable supply of the 35 minerals on the list.

gosar at one point offered an amendment to rename the bill the “enhancing soviet and chinese dominance act,” arguing that not having a ready stockpile of uranium runs the risk of making america dependent on potential adversaries.

“making ourselves completely reliant on other countries like russia, china … is exactly why this bill should be changed directly,” gosar said.

but democrats argued that uranium has no place on the list of “non-fuel” minerals the president ordered up and that there are decades of uranium stockpiles available for military needs.

rep. tom o’halleran, d-sedona, said in a statement after the vote that uranium mining “throughout northern arizona has impacted the health and wellbeing of families across the region, and communities are still grappling with the legacy of this activity decades later.”

“we cannot allow these precious lands to be turned over to mining operations that could irreparably harm the area,” said o’halleran, a co-sponsor of the grand canyon mining bill.

grijalva rejected gop claims that not all tribes support the bills, which he said have wide support. he cited a poll that showed the majority of those surveyed support a mining ban around the grand canyon and believe that protecting public lands and waters is essential to the future economy and quality of life in arizona.

“there is national support and there’s certainly support from tribal nations from across this country, and in arizona itself, considerable and strong support,” grijalva said.

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this story is part of elemental: covering sustainability, a multimedia collaboration between cronkite news, arizona pbs, kjzz, kpcc, rocky mountain pbs and pbs socal. follow them on twitter.

republished with permission. see the original piece at cronkite news. for more stories from cronkite news, visit cronkitenews.azpbs.org. 

cottonwood, arizona – fighting nature with nature seems like a good idea – unless nature doesn’t care about geography.

today, the effects of a federal decision made 20 years ago to use asian beetles to slow the spread of an invasive shrub across the west are reducing nesting habitat for an endangered songbird – the southwestern willow flycatcher.

the u.s. department of agriculture’s animal and plant health inspection service, introduced tamarisk leaf beetles from china and kazakhstan around the west to kill tamarisk trees, also known as salt cedars. some of the beetles were released near moab in eastern utah.

“the goal of their program was to control tamarisk,” said greg beatty, a biologist with the u.s. fish and wildlife service who has led flycatcher recovery efforts since 1999. “reduce it. kill some plants. i don’t think they anticipated that it would kill all tamarisk, but that it would reduce its abundance.”

the beetles did their job, stripping the tamarisk of its feathery, green canopy, which often kills this fast-growing deciduous shrub. the tamarisk was introduced in the 1800s from eurasia as an ornamental, for use in windbreaks and as a way to control stream-bank erosion.

the aphis program wasn’t supposed to release beetles within 200 miles of where southwestern willow flycatchers nest. the birds can be found throughout the west; in arizona, around roosevelt lake and along the upper gila river. experts calculated even if the beetles migrated south toward arizona, the bugs would not survive the difference in climate.

but beetles don’t follow rules.

“in retrospect,” beatty said, “seems pretty clear there wasn’t really any type of geographical boundary that would have kept them where they were at.”

from the virgin river in southwestern utah and into the grand canyon and its tributaries, the beetles spread into arizona, beatty said.

“it’s happened faster than anybody would have expected because we didn’t expect them to be here,” he said.

tamarisk is reviled across the west. it is notorious for crowding out native vegetation, effectively choking riparian areas, particularly along dammed waterways. some scientists say it hogs water, leaving less for native species, although that’s in dispute. it’s considered a noxious weed in new mexico, montana, south dakota, wyoming and texas.

the usda terminated the biological control program in 2010. but now there’s concern over what will happen to flycatcher habitat in arizona.

the primary nesting habitat for the flycatcher, which was listed as endangered in 1995, is in willow trees surrounding riparian areas. however, researchers have found that flycatchers also use tamarisk.

robin silver, co-founder of the center for biological diversity in tucson, said flycatchers depend on foliage to protect their nestlings from the scorching arizona sun.

“even if there are willows, they’re still dependent on the salt cedar or the tamarisk,” silver said. “so to denude or kill that tamarisk right now is really putting too much on the flycatcher for them to be able to survive long term.”

the songbirds – which are brownish-gray with white wing stripes and measure about 6 inches from beak to tail – are also faithful to their nesting sites, returning year after year.

the birds still are listed as endangered. in an email, beatty said the flycatcher population is measured by territories, which include southern california, arizona, and new mexico. there are 1,200 to 1,600 territories, and the u.s. fish and wildlife service estimates there will be a breeding pair per territory. that puts the number of breeding pairs at 600 to 800.

the center for biological diversity successfully sued aphis in 2013. the court’s ruling found that aphis did not comply with the endangered species act in the conservation of an endangered species.

aphis declined to comment for this story, but the agency did provide documents that state the “greater than anticipated natural and intentional human-assisted movement of the beetle caused it to spread into flycatcher habitat.”

as for the future of the flycatcher, beatty is concerned that habitat loss will have significant impacts.

“i think we’re going to have greater booms and busts … the status of the population will decline as the beetle expands throughout its range.”

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this story is part of elemental: covering sustainability, a new multimedia collaboration between cronkite news, arizona pbs, kjzz, kpcc, rocky mountain pbs and pbs socal. follow them on twitter.

republished with permission. see the original piece at cronkite news. for more stories from cronkite news, visit cronkitenews.azpbs.org. 

flagstaff – universities in arizona are stepping up how they handle food waste and single-use plastic. all three of the state’s universities have robust composting programs to reduce what ends up in landfills. but northern arizona university has expanded its efforts to include reusable food containers, and it banned plastic straws this year. now, flagstaff businesses are taking similar steps.

“i see all of the plastic in the ocean and i really want to make sure nau isn’t contributing to that at all,” said senior emerald mccormick, chair of the student run organization nau green fund, which provides funding for projects that reduce the university’s environmental impact. the funds come from a fee nau students pay for sustainability.

in january, mccormick implemented a system at all the campus dining halls that allows students to use “green” food containers that resemble takeout containers. students pay a one time $5 fee for a token, which allows them to check out a container. when they’re finished eating, students return the containers to a machine that stores them until they can be washed, and they get their token back.

“a lot of students are really excited for it. that’s why we expanded it all across campus because they kept asking for it,” mccormick said.

not much of the waste from the food containers goes into the trash. at least 90 percent of nau’s dining hall food waste is composted. after four stages of processing, the waste ends up in piles of compost hidden behind campus.

“all that soil just goes back to nau,” said nau campus-dining sustainability coordinator gaby galvan. “we use it on landscaping. we use it in community gardens. we use it in our greenhouses. it goes to the community members. so it’s just all recycled back into our community.”

composting saves the university on garbage disposal costs. last year, more than 300,000 pounds of food waste made it into the compost piles. that number could be more this year, as campus dining now uses straws that are 100% compostable.

galvan said it was “pretty easy” to get rid of small, disposable plastic on campus, “and also at the same time create a behavior change, and get students to start thinking if they really need all of the plastic disposables that they use throughout the day.”

the behavior change is spreading to flagstaff businesses. laura diez is the nau student who wants to get half of flagstaff businesses straw-free by 2020. she also leads the straw free flag campaign, which is an effort to eliminate single-use plastics.

“i really just am looking for some sort of mindfulness around straws. … obviously i hope to see those eradicated pretty soon,” diez said.

one local business, single speed coffee cafe, no longer uses plastic straws. instead, patrons can get a paper straw and pay extra for a plastic cup.

“nau is always going to be a really big influence on all of us and their ban kind of makes it more known to the students as well,” said zachary shouse, manager of single speed. “it kind of starts to be a normal thing as people go around.”

at least 10 businesses have signed the straw free flag pledge, and about 30 businesses now provide straws by request only, diez said.

arizona state university has similar programs in place. food is composted and plastic straws are not available in dining halls.

the university of arizona is exploring alternative straw options, according to trevor ledbetter, who directs the office of sustainability. the university also has a composting program in partnership with tucson.

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this story is part of elemental: covering sustainability, a new multimedia collaboration between cronkite news, arizona pbs, kjzz, kpcc, rocky mountain pbs and pbs socal.

republished with permission. see the original piece at cronkite news. for more stories from cronkite news, visit cronkitenews.azpbs.org. 

grand junction, colo. – the temperature is hovering around 90 degrees as dale ryden and i float down the colorado river near grand junction. the turbid water looks inviting, a blessed reprieve from the heat, but if either of us jumped in, we’d be electrocuted.

“it can actually probably be lethal to people if you get in there,” said ryden, a fish biologist with the u.s. fish and wildlife service.

ryden’s co-workers cruise by in gray and blue inflatable rafts, their bows fitted with a rig that suspends metal spheres the size of disco balls from electric cables. when the balls are lowered into the river, a generator at the back of each raft sends current through the balls into the water. what lies beneath the surface – ryden likened it to ovaltine – is a mystery the biologists intend to explore.

“to get at the animal we’re studying, we have to actually find ways to capture them and take them out of their natural habitat,” ryden said. “and so, one of the ways we can do that is electrofishing.”

fish that venture near the electrified rafts are momentarily stunned and pulled from the water with nets. today’s mission is to remove non-native fish – such as smallmouth bass that feed on the fry of the four endangered species found in the river. the bass will be collected, measured, weighed, stored in bags and eventually sent to a landfill.

any of the four endangered species – bonytail, razorback sucker, colorado pikeminnow and humpback chub – we encounter will be treated with care and released back into the river.

ryden has a tough, and some would say impossible, job. every day, he tries to find ways to help fish that evolved to live only in this river system – one of the most engineered ecosystems in the world – survive.

ancient species

fish in the colorado river are a product of harsh conditions.

over millions of years, the rushing, sediment-laden water sculpted their bodies with characteristic ridges and bumps, making them well-equipped to handle its highs and lows. but human interference in the rivers they call home has pushed a few to the edge of extinction.

“they’ve survived three explosions of the yellowstone supervolcano,” ryden said. “they were here when mastodons and woolly mammoths went extinct.”

however, the era of big dam building in the west fundamentally altered their river home over the past 100 years or so, ryden said. dams and diversions have made life close to impossible for these fish. then people started adding toxic chemicals, pharmaceuticals and a range of invasive fish for sportsmen to catch.

“call it the death by a thousand cuts,” ryden said. “so they could survive any one of those problems probably fairly well. when you start throwing them all on top of them, then it becomes a lot more problematic.”

about an hour into our trip, there’s a flurry of activity on one of the rafts. technician andrew disch dips his net and pulls out the river’s historic top predator – the colorado pikeminnow. it has been listed as endangered for more than 50 years.

the fish is impressive, measuring about 3 feet long. but it pales compared to the pikeminnows that once hunted the river, ryden said.

“back in the day, these guys used to get 6 feet long and a hundred pounds.”

the pikeminnow gulps down prey with a mouth so huge you could put your whole hand inside without touching the sides – something ryden has tested personally. the torpedo-bodied fish is pale green on top with a white belly and pinkish tail.

u.s. fish and wildlife service biologist travis francis scanned a microchip biologists inserted in the pikeminnow years ago.

“we haven’t we haven’t seen this fish since 2004,” he said, adding that biologists make dozens of passes over this section of river each summer. they’ve documented some pikeminnow migrating several hundred river miles from the san juan river, down through lake powell and up to grand junction. early settlers nicknamed the pikeminnow “the white salmon” for such behavior.

ryden estimated 400 pikeminnow exist in the upper reaches of the colorado river, and close to 800 in stretches of the green river, a tributary of the colorado. he likens the pikeminnow to a lioness on the serengeti: each is at the apex of its food chain. now imagine you built a series of concrete walls around the lion, boxing her in, making it difficult to hunt. that’s what dams on the colorado river have done to the pikeminnow, ryden said.

after the fish was measured and scanned, ryden gently picked it up and walked into the river.

“come here, baby,” he whispered.

with both hands he lowers the minnow into the water. it disappears into the murk.

during this day on the river, ryden repeatedly referred to the endangered species as “our fish.” he takes ownership of their protection. they’re something different and more special than the non-native fish that surround them.

“i’ve earned a lot of respect for them,” he said. “i think if you put that many issues in front of people that we had to adapt to in a very short amount of time, i think as a species we would have a very hard time existing in some of the world-changing conditions that these fish have.”

defining success in recovery

since 1988, recovery programs for endangered colorado river fish have cost hundreds of millions of dollars, funded by a mix of hydropower revenues and money from agencies within the department of the interior. ryden said the effort is beginning to pay off.

two species – the humpback chub and the razorback sucker – are on their way to being downgraded from endangered to threatened.

but deciding whether an endangered species is “recovered” is a subject for debate. some environmental groups have questioned the fish and wildlife service’s decision to downlist the two species. in the case of the razorback sucker, they contend, most of its population growth is the result of an intense breeding and stocking program, not reproduction in the wild. going forward, it’s unclear how much government intervention will be necessary to keep the sucker from going extinct.

in its proposal to downlist the razorback, the upper colorado endangered fish recovery program recommends that fish and wildlife revise the program’s goals, and that its current goals for “recovery,” written in 2002, are inadequate and dated.

the program, a partnership of local, state and federal agencies, water and power interests, and environmental groups, is set to expire in 2023. director tom chart said the partners are rethinking what recovery of means, and how best to achieve it. current goals for the program don’t fully address the need for more coordinated management of flows from the colorado river system’s reservoirs, removal of non-native fish and stocking of endangered species past 2023, he said.

“the colorado river is one of the most altered ecosystems in the world,” chart said in an email. “the (fish and wildlife) service should revise recovery goals for this species in these contexts and based on the experiences and information gathered.”

‘some people even kiss them’

although the endangered species act of 1973 requires the government to save these fish, it can be tough convincing the public that they’re valuable and the effort isn’t in vain. a razorback sucker, ryden noted, doesn’t have the charisma of other wildlife.

“basically we’ve made the judgment through the endangered species act that it (the endangered animal) is there for a reason and it has a right to exist,” he said. “and it doesn’t have to be a polar bear or an eagle.”

in our last few miles on the river, the biologists net a razorback sucker – the second of the day – and head toward the river bank to scan it. the grayish-green fish is notable for its pronounced hump, which looks like the keel of an overturned boat.

that’s when the morton family from houston – mom kate and kids simon and claire – floated by on a raft. ryden, seeing an opportunity to educate the public on the value of the razorback sucker, called them over. he pulled the sucker from the livewell of the raft and presented it to the mortons.

“go ahead, give it a pet,” ryden suggested.

simon gently rubbed his fingers along the fish’s scales. claire tentatively placed an index finger on the razorback’s head.

“isn’t that special?” her mother asked. “wow, that is an awesome fish.”

when ryden first started working on the colorado river, razorbacks nearly had been wiped out. he didn’t see one during his first four years on the job. one day, a crew brought one into the hatchery for breeding. he remembers the biologists crowding around it, marveling at the novelty of seeing a wild razorback.

“some people even kiss them if you’re really brave,” ryden told simon. “just right on the cheek.”

ryden leaned in, nearly touching his lips to the fish, and made a kiss sound.

now, after years of stocking tens of thousands into some reaches of the river, ryden says razorback suckers are plentiful enough that you can find one on any summer day and give it a kiss.

this story is part of a project covering the colorado river, produced by kunc and supported through a walton family foundation grant. kunc is solely responsible for its editorial content.

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this story is part of elemental: covering sustainability, a multimedia collaboration between cronkite news, arizona pbs, kjzz, kpcc, rocky mountain pbs and pbs socal.

republished with permission. see the original piece at cronkite news. for more stories from cronkite news, visit cronkitenews.azpbs.org.