Bird Watchers

tanding 8 inches tall with a 13-inch wingspan, the red-cockaded woodpecker is hardly an imposing figure.

It's difficult to imagine that this creature, with its black-and-white striped back, white cheeks and black cap, could do battle with a 6-foot, 200-pound soldier armed with grenades and a machine gun. And there's certainly no way the bird could face up to a tank.

But the red-cockaded woodpecker is a crafty bird and is holding its ground against the military. In doing so, it has forced the Army and environmentalists to create a unique partnership.

The woodpecker's story dates back to 1970, when it was declared an endangered species. Because of logging, land development, fire and other factors, its habitat-longleaf pine trees-was vanishing. The once common species was reduced to just 12,500 birds scattered across 12 states. One of its few remaining safe havens is Fort Bragg, located in the North Carolina Sandhills, near Fayetteville. Occupying 167,000 acres of mostly wooded land, the base is a popular nesting area for the woodpecker. But Fort Bragg, the Army's largest base, also is home to the 17th Airborne Corps and trains roughly 1.3 million soldiers a year.

Under the 1973 Endangered Species Act, the Army not only is responsible for protecting the woodpecker's habitat, but it also must help bring the bird back from the brink of extinction. In the early 1990s, environmental groups threatened legal action when they became concerned that training on the base was eroding the bird's chances for survival. In 1992, the Fish and Wildlife Service ordered the Army to curtail training operations and come up with a plan to help the woodpecker flourish.

"We were very surprised," says Mike Lynch, chief of the training division at Fort Bragg. "There wasn't a lot of data to support the notion that our activity was disturbing the species. We thought we were pretty good stewards of the land. If we were as bad as we were being portrayed, we wouldn't have any birds on the base at all. We maintain the forest because we need it for training, while local communities are cutting down trees."

While acknowledging that the Army maintains its land well-perhaps better than most private land owners-Katherine Skinner, executive director of the North Carolina chapter of the Nature Conservancy, says that troops and vehicles were coming too close to trees and keeping the birds from nesting.

The order from the Fish and Wildlife Service, known as a "jeopardy opinion," had a significant impact on training at Fort Bragg. The Army had to close some shooting ranges and totally redesign other training sites. Strict limits were placed on the movements of vehicles and soldiers. During the next couple of years, the Army and the agency developed guidelines for managing the land. In 1996, some training restrictions were eased. But at that point, private land was being developed at such a fast pace that red-cockaded woodpeckers were flocking to Fort Bragg, whose training ground was becoming scarce.

"Fort Bragg does such a great job of taking care of the trees," says Skinner. "That is why the jeopardy opinion was so troubling for them. When the dust settled, they took the problem very seriously and asked, 'What do we have to do to make this work?' They were looking at it in a very militaristic way."

With the help of the Army Environmental Center, which helps bases manage their environmental programs, officials at Fort Bragg began discussions in the mid-1990s with the Nature Conservancy on ways to save the woodpecker. The Army and the environmental group forged an innovative partnership that would protect the bird and meet the Army's training needs. Through a joint venture called the Private Lands Initiative, the two groups started buying parcels of land surrounding the base from willing sellers. The partnership owns the land, but the Army manages it. The additional land gives both the Army and the woodpeckers more room.

The partnership has spent roughly $12 million-about $7 million from the Army-on two parcels of land totaling more than 3,000 acres. Skinner says the two groups would like to acquire at least another five parcels of land. That could cost nearly $50 million. But the two sides see the initiative as mutually beneficial.

"We see it as our responsibility to preserve the ecosystem here," says Col. Rod Chisholm, deputy director of the Public Works Business Center at Fort Bragg. "It's the right thing to do if we want to keep training here."

NOT EASY BEING GREEN

Before the alliance could be created, officials on all sides of the issue had to overcome several cultural and philosophical hurdles.

"There was a lot of tension between the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Army," says Peter Campbell, an FWS biologist who works in the Fort Bragg area. The Army "saw the jeopardy opinion as hurting training," he says. "The military's point of view was that they couldn't do realistic training."

It became clear that all the players needed a better understanding of the others' positions. So they started talking. While the Army and the Nature Conservancy eventually set up a partnership, FWS officials also played an important role by identifying land that was critical for the woodpecker's survival.

The Army started educating the environmental groups about its training practices and how troops actually move through the woods, says Lynch. As the partnership with the conservancy evolved, both sides say the tension between them melted away.

The same cannot be said for overall relations between the environmental community and the military at the national level. Interviews with officials at several national environmental organizations as well as at the Environmental Protection Agency reflect general distrust of the military. Officials at the Fish and Wildlife Service, speaking on condition of anonymity, also sound a note of concern. Some feel intimidated by military brass.

FWS officials "are not military and they don't understand what goes on inside the fences," says Jamie Rappaport Clark, senior vice president at the National Wildlife Federation. Clark, the daughter of an Army colonel and former fish and wildlife administrator for the Army, headed the FWS during the Clinton administration. Lack of familiarity with the military sometimes makes it difficult for FWS officials to find the right balance between protecting the environment and national security, she adds.

High-ranking military officials have made it clear they think that civilian regulatory agencies sometimes act in haste. In a December 2000 policy paper on environmental regulations, Navy environmental specialist Kim DePaul charged that "in the absence of scientific information to the contrary, [regulatory agencies] assume that the proposed [Defense Department] activity will harm the environment."

The issue is now coming to a head on Capitol Hill, where Defense officials are pushing legislation that would ease some of their responsibilities under environmental statutes. The laws, they argue, impede training. The initial proposal backed by the Pentagon, called the Readiness and Range Preservation Initiative, sought relief from provisions in six environmental laws, including the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, the 1973 Endangered Species Act, the 1972 Clean Water Act, the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act and statutes governing the cleanup of hazardous waste.

Congress has pared down the package. Only language affecting the Endangered Species Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act made its way into the House version of the 2003 Defense authorization bill. The Senate rejected all the provisions. As of early September, the bill was in conference committee, and the outcome of its environmental provisions was uncertain. Regardless of what happens in conference, congressional staffers say they are working with Defense to find other legislative vehicles for environmental exemptions.

Defense officials say they are not trying to roll back environmental laws. But they argue that they need the flexibility to conduct more realistic training. "The impacts on readiness must be considered when applying environmental regulations to military-unique training and testing activities," Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Raymond DuBois told the House Armed Services Military Readiness Subcommittee on March14. "We in the Defense Department recognize that, as a practical matter, the burden is on us to prove and justify and document that the lack of clarification imposes an ever-increasing burden on military training."

Environmentalists don't think the military has done a good job of supporting its claims. They are quick to point out that laws already provide exemptions for the military, especially when national security is at risk. Yet the military has never sought to exercise those exemptions. In most cases, military officials say it takes too long to actually maneuver through the red tape. For example, Gen. Michael Williams, assistant commandant of the Marine Corps, told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in July that it could take up to nine months to get an exemption from the 1976 Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, which regulates the disposal and cleanup of hazardous waste.

Getting exemptions under the Endangered Species Act requires a meeting of the so-called "God Squad," which consists of the secretaries of Agriculture, Army and Interior, and the administrators of EPA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as well as the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors. The panel has been called to action only twice since 1973, and never to deal with a request from the military.

The legislative battle has driven a wedge between environmentalists, regulators and the military. EPA officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, say they are worried about Defense's powers of persuasion on Capitol Hill. They fear that the Pentagon will continue to use the war on terrorism as an excuse to chip away at environmental laws. They note that Defense has for several years been trying to exempt munitions from the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.

"There are some inherent tensions in the system," says Aimee Houghton, associate director at the Center for Public Environmental Oversight, a Washington-based advocacy group. "EPA's mission is to protect human health and the environment. Defense's mission is force protection. [Defense officials think] no one should be able to tell them how to execute that mission. That is where they clash."

DOWNSTREAM

The political tension is not confined to federal agencies. State regulators, who largely act as EPA's cops on the beat, worry that the military's efforts to overturn environmental regulations could sour their relationships with the Defense Department.

David Mears, senior assistant attorney general for Washington state, says that in recent years, state officials have been able to resolve compliance issues involving military bases without much conflict. "The legislation certainly has the potential to affect local relations, though," he says. "One instance comes to mind where the Navy is challenging a particular cleanup order here. Independent of the [legislation] I wouldn't think much of it. But you put the two together and you start to wonder if there is a shift back to the culture where they resist efforts to regulate any activities."

That is certainly not the military's intent, DuBois said at the House hearing. The department is committed to protecting the environment. The question is how to balance national security interests with environmental laws. The two are not mutually exclusive, he said, citing Fort Bragg as a prime example.

"One of the things that we have worked very intently on here is building strong relationships," says Col. Tad Davis, garrison commander at Fort Bragg. "Anytime you can get folks from both sides of the river [to have a dialogue] on environmental issues, it is going to be beneficial. It is very helpful to talk about our requirements for readiness and at the same time understand what our environmental requirements are. We have to come up with ways to find mutual ground."