The Species that Shut Down the Tellico Dam in the 1970s May Not Actually Exist
Snail Darter RIP
By Jonathan Turley
In the annals of environmental law, no creature is more famous than the Snail Darter, the endangered species that shut down completion of the Tellico Dam in the 1970s. It required congressional legislation to allow the dam to be finished after years in the courts where judges maintained that the species had to be protected under the Endangered Species Act. According to the New York Times., the species may turn out to be as mythical as a unicorn.
The controversy began in 1967 when the Tennessee Valley Authority started constructing a dam on the Little Tennessee River, roughly 20 miles outside Knoxville. Environmentalists and locals opposed the project and, in 1973, a zoologist at the University of Tennessee named David Etnier went snorkeling with his students and found a possible solution. He spotted a small fish and called it a “snail darter” because of its movements and eating habits. He reportedly announced “Here’s a little fish that might save your farm.”
Dr. Zygmunt Plater, an environmental law professor at Boston College, represented the snail darter before the Supreme Court. He did an excellent job and, in 1978, the Supreme Court ruled that “the Endangered Species Act prohibits impoundment of the Little Tennessee River by the Tellico Dam” to protect the endangered snail darters.
That was then.
The Times now quotes Thomas Near, the curator of ichthyology at the Yale Peabody Museum who leads a fish biology lab at the university, that “there is, technically, no snail darter.” Worse yet, it was actually just another member of the eastern population of Percina uranidea, or stargazing darters, which is not considered endangered.
Near and his colleagues have published the results in Current Biology
In other words, years of litigation and millions of dollars were spent on what was a false claim, and the courts accepted the claims hook, line, and sinker.
Under the ESA, the snail darter was listed as protected and therefore triggered Section 7 of the Act barring federal agencies from undertaking actions that could jeopardize a species’ survival or destroy any of its critical habitat.
In Tennessee Valley Auth. v. Hill, 437 U.S. 153 (1978), Chief Justice Warren Burger noted that the finding of this “previously unknown species of perch” changed everything on a legal level. He added:
“Until recently, the finding of a new species of animal life would hardly generate a cause celebre. This is particularly so in the case of darters, of which there are approximately 130 known species, 8 to 10 of these having been identified only in the last five years. The moving force behind the snail darter’s sudden fame came some four months after its discovery, when the Congress passed the Endangered Species Act of 1973 (Act), 87 Stat. 884, 16 U.S.C. § 1531 et seq. (1976 ed.).”
Plater insisted that Dr. Near is merely a “lumper” who tends to rely on genetics rather than being a “splitter” who proliferates new species. Dr. Plater added that “whether he intends it or not, lumping is a great way to cut back on the Endangered Species Act.”
That was a particularly revealing point from the law professor since it suggests what could be an overwhelming motive could be legal and not scientific in declaring the new species — the very objection raised in the litigation and denied by many advocates.
Roughly three years ago, the government declared victory in restoring the snail darter and the Fish and Wildlife Service proposed removing it from the ESA list of threatened species.
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(TLB) published this article from Jonathan Turley with our appreciation for this perspective
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. Follow him on Twitter @JonathanTurley.
Header featured image (edited) credit: WP open card. Emphasis added by (TLB)
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Just more idiotic tree hugger bullshit.