Posted with permission.
Ira Sanders
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
For Immediate Release: Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Contact: Kenneth Kristl [Widener Environmental and Natural
Resources Law Clinic] (302) 477-2053; Nicholas DiPasquale [Delaware Audubon]
(302) 423-4140; Kevin Golden [Center for Food Safety] (415) 826-2770 ext. 303;
Luke Eshleman [PEER] (202) 265-7337;
LAWSUIT ENDS GENETICALLY ENGINEERED CROPS ON WILDLIFE REFUGE
Ruling on Delaware's Prime Hook May Affect Farming on Scores of
Other Refuges
Washington, DC - A federal court has ordered the U.S. Fish &
Wildlife Service to stop planting genetically engineered (GE) crops on its
Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge in Delaware. While the ruling is limited
to Prime Hook, the lawsuit may serve as a model for similar litigation at more
than 80 other national wildlife refuges now growing GE crops across the
country.
Filed in April 2006 by the Widener Environmental and Natural
Resources Law Clinic on behalf of Delaware Audubon Society, Public Employees
for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) and the Center for Food Safety, the
federal suit charged that the Fish & Wildlife Service had illegally entered
into Cooperative Farming Agreements with private parties, allowing hundreds of
acres to be plowed over without required environmental review and contrary to
the Service's own policy prohibiting GE crops.
"It is unfortunate that we had to file suit against the Service
to get it to comply with its own policies," commented Nicholas DiPasquale,
Conservation Chair for Delaware Audubon. "It is clear that this Refuge Manager
had abdicated control over farming operations at Prime Hook just as it is also
clear that farming practices have been extremely destructive to the forested
uplands at the refuge."
The groups filed suit after discovering that a top Bush
administration political appointee overruled the wildlife refuge manager in
allowing the gene altered crops. Three months after the groups filed suit in
the U.S. District Court for Delaware, the Fish & Wildlife Service loosened its
policies to facilitate greater use of GM crops on all refuges.
"These farming programs chew up the habitat that is supposed to
provide refuge for wildlife," stated Grady Hocutt, a former long-time refuge
manager who directs the PEER refuge program. "Genetically modified crops serve
no legitimate refuge purpose and have no business being grown there."
Farming within wildlife refuges often interferes with the
protection of the wildlife and the native grasses that the national refuge
system is designed to protect. Scientists also warn the use of genetically
engineered crops can lead to increased pesticide use on refuges and can have
additional negative effects on birds, aquatic animals, and other wildlife. In
this case, Federal District Court Chief Judge Gregory Sleet concluded that "it
is undisputed that farming with genetically modified crops at Prime Hook poses
significant environmental risks."
"The U.S. Fish and Wildlife should not be planting genetically
engineered crops on National Wildlife Refuges," said Kevin Golden, Staff
Attorney for the Center for Food Safety. "Prime Hook is the tip of the iceberg
of a nation-wide problem which needs to be addressed at refuges around the
country."
The court ruling blocks future agricultural operations on Prime
Hook until compatibility determinations required by the National Wildlife
Refuge System Administration Act and environmental assessments required by the
National Environmental Policy Act have been completed.
###
Read the court
ruling<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?key=949337594&url_num=2&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.peer.org%2Fdocs%2Fde%2F09_24_03_prime_hook_opinion.pdf+>
See the complaint and facts giving rise to the
suit<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?key=949337594&url_num=3&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.peer.org%2Fnews%2Fnews_id.php%3Frow_id%3D669>
Look at the Fish & Wildlife Service rule change to facilitate
GE crops on
refuges<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?key=949337594&url_num=4&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.peer.org%2Fdocs%2Fde%2F09_24_03_amendment_1_601_fw3_refuge_management.pdf+>
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