Last month, my co-columnist, Tom Turner, reported that the Bush administration had abruptly proposed a reduction of some 94 percent of the acreage set aside as critical habitat for the marbled murrelet, a small sea bird that nests in old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest.

The story of the murrelet just got a lot more interesting.

On October 2, we received a pile of documents that were released as a result of an Earthjustice Freedom of Information Act request that sought to ferret out what role, if any, Julie MacDonald and other political appointees had played in the writing of a "status review" of the murrelet. The review was conducted as a result of a timber industry lawsuit whose ultimate goal was to strip Endangered Species Act protection from the murrelet. The final version of the review contradicted most scientific studies in concluding that the murrelets in Washington, Oregon, and California, now protected by the Endangered Species Act, did not deserve that protection because there are more numerous murrelets in British Columbia and Alaska, and a 2004 Canadian law would help with murrelet conservation.

Julie MacDonald recently resigned from the Department of the Interior, where she gained considerable notoriety for overruling agency biologists or forcing them to rewrite their scientific conclusions to the benefit of various commercial concerns and to the detriment of a wide range of wildlife species. Upon her departure, the Fish and Wildlife Service announced that it would investigate eight instances where Ms. MacDonald may have meddled improperly. Those eight did not include the murrelet, whose protection is vociferously opposed by the timber industry, a major contributor to the Bush campaigns in 2000 and 2004.

So Kristen Boyles in the Earthjustice Seattle office asked for documents under the Freedom of Information Act that might shed some light on Ms. MacDonald's role. Sometimes it pays to ask.

Marbled murrelet

Photo: FWS

I'll link to some of the primary information in a minute, but in a nutshell, Ms. MacDonald questioned reliance on certain scientific documents, urged consideration of unpublished timber industry data, and ultimately rewrote the status review's conclusion that the murrelets in Washington, Oregon, and California deserved protection. The day before the final status review was released, FWS changed its "yes" to a "no" on the question "Does the original listing meet the DPS policy with regards to the Discreteness and Significance elements of the DPS policy?"

In other words, where agency scientists had determined that the murrelets in the Northwest are a "distinct population segment," that finding was turned on its head at the last minute.

Kristen Boyles immediately wrote to demand that the FWS withdraw the status review and investigate Ms. MacDonald's role in the murrelet matter. We'll let you know what happens.

It is hardly news that Bush administration officials have avoided, evaded, flouted, and violated environmental laws relentlessly for nearly seven years. What's worth noting is that the practice continues even in the face of overwhelming public disapproval. And no one yet knows the full extent of this corruption of law and science. We'll be cleaning up messes well into the next administration no matter who the next president may be.

Summary and excerpts from the FOIA documents (PDF)

Full FOIA documents (PDF)

Vawter "Buck" Parker, Executive Director
buckparker@earthjustice.org