A new lawsuit accuses two federal agencies of reneging on commitments to conduct environmental reviews on how 14 summer homes and an abandoned camp on Mount Graham are affecting the endangered red squirrel.
The Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity and two other groups filed the suit Wednesday, contending the U.S. Forest Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service violated the Endangered Species Act.
The agencies have failed to insure the two developments don’t jeopardize the squirrel’s existence or illegally damage its proposed critical habitat, the suit says.
These issues are particularly acute, the suit says, since the 48,400-acre Frye Fire on Mount Graham in summer 2017 destroyed a great deal of squirrel habitat and slashed the squirrels’ population.
The mountain near Safford is about 150 miles northeast of Tucson.
The agencies declined comment, saying they don’t comment on pending litigation.
Also filing the suit in federal court in Tucson were the Maricopa Audubon Society and the nonprofit Mount Graham Coalition.
Their suit targets the Forest Service’s 2015 OK of a permit that continued to authorize the Old Columbine Summer Home Tract, which contains 14 homes on 25 acres. It also targets the Arizona Church of Christ Bible Camp, which lies on 20 acres about 1,200 feet from the summer homes in the Ash Creek drainage area, in Douglas fir habitat below the mountaintop.
The camp’s operating permit with the Forest Service is long expired, and the church vacated the property in 2017, the suit says. Still remaining are a dining hall, a generator house, a shower house with septic tank and leach field, a tool shed, two toilet buildings, water and electrical systems, six barracks buildings, and four ramadas. The Forest Service solicited public comments last fall on whether to reissue the permit to the church or to a new applicant.
The Mount Graham red squirrel is one of 25 red squirrel subspecies known to exist in North America.
Its existence on the mountain, its sole home, has been particularly precarious since the 2017 fire, which knocked down its known population from a range of 200-300 to 35.
The subspecies has rebounded some. The Arizona Game and Fish Department said a September 2019 survey found 78 squirrels on the mountain, up from 75 a year earlier. In a news release, Game and Fish called this increase “proof that the endangered squirrel continues its fight back,” and an encouraging sign for its recovery.
The lawsuit, however, says, “Today, by any metric the Mount Graham red squirrel is teetering on the brink of extinction,” because of development of its habitat and the risk of future fires.
The groups are taking the federal agencies to task for failing to initiate environmental reviews on the camp and homes.
The suit points out that in April 2018, the groups filed a formal notice of intent to sue the agencies. They held off suing, it says, after the agencies told them the review “is needed at this time.”
But today, the suit says, the Forest Service hasn’t started the first step of the review — a biological assessment. The agencies haven’t responded to a followup letter from the plaintiffs seeking an update.
While declining comment on the suit, Fish and Wildlife Service’s Arizona chief, Jeff Humphrey, said that typically, the responsibility to begin such reviews lies with the “action agency.” In this case, that’s the Forest Service, which must approve permits for these projects, he said.
Forest Service spokeswoman Heidi Schewel declined to say when the work will begin because the issue is now in litigation.
