National Park Service Kills Rare Plants WildLaw and its clients Wild Alabama and Appalachian Voices discovered illegal actions by the National Park Service in Little River Canyon National Preserve in northeast Alabama. Home to the east's deepest and longest mountaintop river canyon, Little River Canyon National Preserve is home to a number of rare plant species that occur nowhere else in the world. One of these, the Green Pitcher Plant, was killed and its habitat adversely impacted by the Park Service's road maintenance activities. Knowing that they had damaged the plant and its habitat, the Park Service literally tried to cover up the action with pine straw and pine branches. We also discovered that the Park Service's dirt roads in the Preserve and their maintenance activities on them are causing sedimentation to run directly into Little River and its tributaries, all without the required permits under the Clean Water Act.
Little River has no permitted pollution discharges on it, and thus it has very clean water.
How ironic that the Park Service is now discovered to be the River's major illegal polluter. WildLaw issued a 60-day notice letter telling the Park Service and Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt that we intend to sue them over these ESA and CWA violations. These stealth regulations are designed to be weaker than EPA standards and to give industry the maximum amount of pollution possible. Yet, ADEM has never adopted these rules through public notice and comment rule making, as is required by Alabama law. On behalf of Mobile Bay Watch, WildLaw is suing over these secret rules and trying to stop the entire air pollution program in Alabama until ADEM complies with the law.