Word: tellico
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Nearly extinct and known to live only in the waters of the Little Tennessee River, the 3-in.-long snail darter is exerting an influence far out of proportion to its size. In June the U.S. Supreme Court stopped construction of the $116 million Tellico Dam because it would wipe out the diminutive fish, thereby violating the 1973 Endangered Species Act. Now the snail darter is endangering the very law that protected...
...week failed to renew funding for the act, thus idling the 195 Interior Department bureaucrats and field agents who enforce it and leaving the snail darter, American bald eagle, grizzly bear and 700 other troubled creatures with near toothless federal protection. Some parties to the funding fight cited the Tellico Dam incident as cause. Concluded Keith Schreiner, the Interior Department official in charge of enforcing the act: "Congress is scared. They don't want bureaucrats to have this kind of authority...
...love of gold we routed the Indian from his homeland and livelihood, and now we sink the dam at Tellico to save the snail darter. O temporal O mores...
Work on the $116 million Tellico Dam across the Little Tennessee River was nearly finished in 1973 when an ichthyologist discovered the snail darter, a three-inch species of perch whose only known natural habitat is the 17 miles of water behind the dam. Completing the project would create a stagnant lake, killing the 10,000 tiny fish; the snail darter became a protected species under the federal Endangered Species Act in 1975, and construction was halted last year. Lawyers for the Tennessee Valley Authority went to court, arguing that no fish was more important than...
...sentiment is growing in Congress to change the law. One amendment, backed by Tennessee Republican Senator Howard Baker, would enable a review committee to waive the law when an "irresolvable conflict" arose, as in the case of the Tellico Dam. "If all else fails," said Tennessee Governor Ray Blanton, "well promote it as the world's largest monument to the world's smallest fish...