Johnny French Interview, Part 2 of 2

  • DT: Let's return to something you were talking about when we were on the-the previous tape. You-you gave two examples that brought up kind of a-a similar issue, in my mind at least. One was the-the Boca del Chica project...
  • 00:01:33 - 2372
  • JF: Playa del Rio at Boca Chica.
  • DT: ...proposal for this-this development. And-and the second was the-the dredging and the spoil disposal problem. And in the first case, it seemed like the Fish and Wildlife Service review delayed the actual construction of the project long enough for it to sort of fall apart of its own accord because of poor financing and other problems.
  • 00:02:02 - 2372 JF: Right.
  • DT: And in the second case, with the-the dredge disposal, you actually found alternatives that saved the Corps money.
  • 00:02:13 - 2372 JF: Yeah.
  • DT: So in first case, it might have been a time issue, in the second case it was more like a content, you know, some-some better information you provided in the course of your review. So I'm-I'm wondering why in view of those two benefits from these-theses reviews, the Fish and Wildlife Service consultations and opinions and-and impact statements are often considered red tape and sort of a-or-a net loss and waste to-to the private sector.
  • 00:02:49 - 2372 JF: They are-they are, in-in fact, red tape, but, you know, it's-it's a very under-rated effect. I guess it comes kind of in that category of checks and balances. There-it was many years ago, a popular science fiction author noted that in fact we should have more red tape because as-as governments get more and more efficient and do things quicker, they make more mistakes. If you slow things down and you take a
  • 00:03:24 - 2372
  • deliberate look at most any project, you can find a way of doing it better. It's not necessary that you can do it better, but fortunately, you know, by the end of-of the-the 1960s era, by 1969, Congress acknowledged this effect to the point that they said, well, look, we won't require that every agency take the cheapest or the most expensive, or the least environmentally damaging course, but we'll make sure that everybody gets a chance
  • 00:04:01 - 2372 to take a shot at it, and that every possible bad effect or good effect, and alternative, and their good and bad effects, will be examined before we actually spend a dollar on the project. You know, before we do something that's irretrievable. What I'm referring to is, of course, the-the National Environmental Policy Act. Now that project review system has probably saved the country many billions of dollars, because when it's effective and does what it's intended to do, it isn't just slowing things down, it's making people actually
  • 00:04:41 - 2372
  • take a second look. And it's surprising how often that second look is more clear, you know, more lucid. A lot of-a lot of really good engineers have admitted this, that they had a mistake in their first calcu-set of calculations, that this might have saved lives because somebody else looking over their shoulder found that mistake. A lot of times something comes out of the woodwork too. This is a-this is a very alarming situation,
  • 00:05:15 - 2372 and-and it occurs often enough. The reference I had earlier to having discovered that the currents were pushing the Corps' mat-material back into the channel almost as fast as they could dredge it. Stuff that can't be anticipated you have no crystal ball for, still manage to fall in your lap before you've committed any resources. That's what's important about that law and a good many other laws, they-they don't just slow you
  • 00:05:43 - 2372 down, you know, they make you take another look, and it's the second look, or the third look, or whoever else is looking for you, that-that makes it a very-very happy thing you did. It's expensive, but it still saves money. It looks like it's red tape, but it's more like pink bow ribbons. The projects are better because of it. That was the intent. There-there should not be, as far as I'm concerned, any reason to doubt that these things
  • 00:06:15 - 2372 are better for the U.S. of A. as a whole, and we're talking about dollars, not just this-you know, for-for tree huggers, you know, or-or for people who want to protect the-the-the little cold slimies, we're talking about saving people's lives, we're talking about saving their economies, we're talking about saving jobs.
  • DW: I had an additional question on that. And yet the ability to throw-I don't want to use the word "roadblock," because that sounds negative in your context.
  • 00:06:47 - 2372
  • JF: Yes.
  • DW: In a way often-often doesn't come for free because the government requires it, but it's like it takes a bake sales from people to actually...
  • 00:06:54 - 2372
  • JF: Sure. DW: ...do that. And the other side seems (?) the developer's side, you get all the lawyers and money in their world. So how do we get any equality in bake sales versus Swiss bank accounts to make this happen?
  • 00:07:06 - 2372 JF: Yeah. It's-it's-it's a matter of-of-of record that we have seen a pendulum swing many times. In the-in the '60s the pendulum was very much in-in the favor of environmental law. And by the 19-1973 era we hadn't really seen the-the-the best and the brightest. There hasn't been anything actually similar to that in the way of a pendulum swing since. And what I think I'm seeing is that pendulum slowing down. The
  • 00:07:37 - 2372 environmental groups and the environmental agencies like-like the Fish and Wildlife Service, had the advantage at first because those laws were new, and-we're talking about the black-letter law, the-the-the case law was still being written and it's being written to this day. But in-in those days the-the judges tend to-to actually read more into the ability of the agencies and the plaintiffs, the environmental groups, than they did
  • 00:08:03 - 2372 in the developer or the federal agency that was affected. Times have changed. Those laws have been on the books long enough that a whole new era in environmental lawyering has occurred. And I use that word advisory. There are a lot-ad-advisedly. There are a lot of people out there who make a living in fighting these cases. And the only people who can afford to do that on a regular basis are the mega corporations. So
  • 00:08:35 - 2372 these people have, at their beck and call, the pros, to come and work at any given time. But it's still a matter of bake sales to come up with the funding and the lawyers and so forth for the other side. So now, you know, the pendulum's still swinging. Things like global warming may speed it up a little bit, but it's not swinging as fast as it had, you know, in a-a couple of decades ago. It's-it's-it's a matter of perseverance, therefore, the folks with the bake sales should just keep baking. Okay? But don't hope for an early
  • 00:09:13 - 2372 victory. That's become more unlikely because the other side has a lot of clout and can move much faster. Still, if you do wait long enough, and you do, you know, get enough attention focused on something, you-you know, any project will have some Achilles' heel. That'll show up. And it should show up before the thing is built and then collapses around us.
  • DT: Let's talk a little bit about the-some of the problems and Achilles' heels that you may have found in the second looks at-at some of the plants along the Texas coast. And I'm talking about...
  • 00:09:53 - 2372
  • JF: Yes. DT: ...facilities, chemical plants such as Formosa Chemicals, ASARCO, Alcoa. Did-did you manage to review some of these projects or...
  • 00:10:02 - 2372 JF: I got-I get a...
  • DT: ...things related to them? 00:10:04 - 2372 JF: I got into things on the tail end of-of Asarco. Asarco. At one time-let's see, I believe that's American Smelting and Refining Company-at one time had a facility in the inner harbor of Corpus Christi, but they had pretty much begun to move out of the port before I came along. But their-their legacy was still there. In the early days I worked with the Fish and Wildlife Service, I reviewed some dredging projects for the
  • 00:10:33 - 2372 maintenance and deepening of that inner harbor. And the material that was being dredged up, the first scoop more or less of what you take off the bottom of the harbor was hotter than a pistol with heavy metals. And there was only one finger to be pointed because there was only one producer of same, and that was Asarco. Materials that were coming out of there were phenomenal levels of zinc and cadmium. And there were
  • 00:11:03 - 2372 probably a lot of other little subsidiary chemicals, but those were the big ones. At least we didn't have mercury in-in great, you know, amounts. Most of that material today is still near the inner harbor, but it's been dredged up and buried, you know, intentionally. I mean because that was the recommendation. As the stuff came up, they would sample it, find out where the hottest was, and go and stick it on the bottom of the deepest pile they could come up with, of stuff that wasn't as contaminated. So that as years go by-this
  • 00:11:34 - 2372 stuff is fairly immobile, these metals are, so long as they're kept away from the environment. Odd as it is, these things, you know, are-are-are chemically pretty toxic, but there are still some organisms, like plants in particular, that it can take them up and not be killed by it. And one of the results of that was, one of the studies done in the inner harbor of Corpus Christi produced the highest level of zinc ever found in a living
  • 00:12:02 - 2372 organism, and that was in some weeds that grew on those spoil piles, which is why they had to be buried deeper than ever, and hopefully are never dug up again.
  • Mercury, of course, is a problem in other areas. And-yeah, the Alcoa situation up there at Point Comfort, again, most of that activity ceased before I came along, and it wasn't really my bailiwick to get into. But my office to this day is still having headaches over it because
  • 00:12:34 - 2372
  • mercury doesn't go away either, and when it is in the environment, it is much more active. Microbes can get a hold of it and twist it around, make a new molecule that makes the-the elemental mercury look like nothing. And yet there are still portions of the dredge material around there where you can dig it up and watch the mercury pool. There were millions of pounds of mercury discharged into the air, and it fell to earth not
  • 00:13:07 - 2372 far away because it's heavy, and into the water, and now that-all the area around Point Comfort is a Superfund sight, mainly aquatic one. So what is there to worry about today? You know, again, you know, this stuff can be dug up and then buried, and then hopefully it won't, you know, become active again. Well, they're fixing to dig it up. There is of all things, an LNG port proposed to be constructed on one of those spoil banks. And to get
  • 00:13:39 - 2372 in there on an almost daily basis with a big tanker, which is what an LNG ship actually is, means that the prop is constantly stirring the sediments up and uncovering all the mercury that has been dredged up and capped and put somewhere else. So this is not a good thing. But keep in mind, this is also a process that sometimes uses a once-through heating system. Combine that with stirring up the mud, and you've got one heck of a deadly mix.
  • 00:14:15 - 2372 So this was one of the-the first things that-that was recommended, many agencies have recommended, individuals have recommended, and I think the company, if it does build there, it will not use a once-through system. They'll use another system that essentially burns a little bit of their LNG to heat the rest. So there is an example of what delays have done. By looking at-at-at projects like this, we've learned not to do them again. Or if we do them again, not to do them the same dumb way they were done
  • 00:14:48 - 2372 originally. If you have a-a-a chemical that you're handling that's volatile and will get away from you, think of ways to keep it from leaving.
  • Now in-in Formosa's case, they had a problem way back when with their discharge. You know, the chemicals that they-they deal with, some of it would escape. Some of it would get into the discharge. Ultimate-you know what Formosa did? They quit discharging. All their water gets recycled. If they take the water in, it stays there until it's all used up. It's not
  • 00:15:23 - 2372 discharged. So it doesn't add to the problem of the mercury contamination that's there, and the other-well, this-there is a-a-polycyclic hydrocarbons, other headaches there, you know-not of Formo-Formosa's doing, but things which they could have exacerbated if they had contributed their own to them. This is one of those things where you've lived and you learned. Now I dealt with potential endangered species, you know,
  • 00:15:53 -2372 impacts from that project, and chemicals were a concern. But not to-but not so much from Formosa, but from where Formosa was. Had they not picked that site, they might have been somewhere else. But, you know, the oddity is that some of the other Formosa projects that are in other areas of the U.S. that have the same headaches. You know, again it's contaminants. So long as they don't contribute their own, you know, we should
  • 00:16:21 - 2372 be happy at least with that. A lot of people had a misconception I found first off with-with the Fish and Wildlife Service that our branch of it at least was there to prevent projects from happening. That happens so seldom, and-and-and almost never by our intent. And here I am speaking in-in-in that term. It's not mine anymore.
  • But the Fish and Wildlife Service was constantly there to advise and-and-and hopefully come
  • 00:16:53 - 2372 up with alternatives that would allow the project to continue, but without all the harm, to do it in the least damaging way. Certainly it wasn't always the cheapest way, at least not-not, you know, looked at from that point of view. But if you were ASARCO today, or you were any of the companies that have been accused, like Alcoa, of contributing to a Superfund site, and if you knew then what you do now, think how much bigger your bank account would be, because the money you saved in producing the pollutants and releasing
  • 00:17:28 - 2372 them in the first place, is now all being taken back to manage those sites. Unfortunately, not all of it's coming out of the pockets of the people who put it there, coming out of your pocket and my pocket too. But that's part of the process of learning to review a project very well before you start the next one. Delays aren't good, from the point of view of a-an immediate dollar. They're magnificent in the point of view of the long term, however. They always save you money.
  • DT: Let me ask you a question about a-another kind of industrial facility, and that's nuclear power plants. I was curious if you looked at Allen's Creek Nuclear Project, or the South Texas Nuclear Project when they were proposed.
  • 00:18:16 - 2372 JF: No. I'm very glad never to have had anything to do with those. I'm so happy.
  • DT: Why do you feel that way?
  • 00:18:24 - 2372 JF: Well, nuclear power got a-a stigma, you know, a long time ago. And-and-and I won't say how much I think it's deserved, and how much it isn't. All I know is that the hoops that you have to jump through with that are probably as bad for the regulatory agencies as it is for the industry. Because so many people have that feeling, that there's a stigma there, they want to do everything they possibly can to posture and make it look
  • 00:18:52 - 2372 like they're making it better. Politically, I don't know if that's wise or not. But I'm happy at-at least that there's been a slowdown in that process of they're giving a second look. Otherwise we'll have another one of these Diablo Canyon things. I think referred to-there was a-an L-an LNG plant on the west coast that fortunately wasn't built because it was on a fault. We found out it was on a fault because the Diablo Canyon Generating Station was built on a fault. We found out a little too late. Sometimes it's better to go slow.
  • DT: My understanding is that a lot of the concerns about these chemical plants or utilities is driven by the effects on wildlife. And I was wondering if that's another way that you could maybe usher us through this is to look at some of the plants or animals that might have been affected by projects that engendered some kind of review of ...
  • 00:19:53 - 2372
  • JF: No, I-I-I-I-I think everybody is-is-is aware that there's been a-an attempt here in recent years to go ma-go back and-and demonize Rachel Carson and her generation for having brought an end to-to the world distribution of DDT. Of course, first here in the U.S., but then, you know, later throughout the world. All I can say is that if it hadn't been for DDT and-and the similar chemicals, we would never had almost
  • 00:20:26 - 2372 lost the Bald Eagle. We would never almost have lost I don't know how many other kinds of birds, including the Brown Pelican. You know, I-at one time, the state bird, the Brown Pelican of Louisiana, disappeared from Louisiana because of eggshell thinning that was brought on by DDT and its affiliates. And it's-it-it's ironic now that-that people are trying to say that, yes, but we could have saved millions of lives in India or
  • 00:20:54 - 2372 Africa or wherever, because they still have malaria. You know, and this was-this was a chemical necessary to fight malaria. Was it? What did we do when we lost DDT? We began to create everything else under the sun, some of which we regret having also created, but at least this time we were warned.
  • Silent Spring was probably among the-the most advantageous publications in the environmental movement, and in saving
  • 00:21:34 - 2372 human lives ultimately, because we suddenly became aware that a chemical that was almost ubiquitous was having effects on those canaries in the coalmine. And it wasn't until a little bit later we began to find out, well, heck, it isn't just eggshell thinning that's occurring, what's happening to the human gene plasm? Yeah. Are-are some of these things that look almost like thalidomide babies DDT babies? How about some of the chemicals that we're, you know, beginning to produce to replace DDT? Shouldn't we have a-a process, a legal one, and a scientific one, that reviews them before we release
  • 00:22:17 - 2372 those on the environment? And guess what? We've started doing that. And guess what? We've found those impacts. And now we're looking at-at-at things as-as widespread as-as multiple legs on-on-on frogs. And how the heck did that happen? And, well, maybe it's a virus. You know, maybe it's something in the natural environment. Or maybe it's a chemical that we used to put our drinking water in. Some of the-some of the plastics out there affect human as well as natural sexual cycles.
  • DT: These would be the endocrine disruptors?
  • 00:23:01 - 2372
  • JF: Yeah. Yeah, and we don't even recognize their effects until, you know, you've studied the heck out of them, and it takes years to do it. So yeah. We're-we're slowing down for a good cause. Because some of these things, like-like dioxin, for example, you know, they were out there and they were ubiquitous for years. And nearly every paper product that we ever had required their-their-their formation. And sometimes it was, you know, overlooked un-until we were at the point that-that whole river systems were dying. And people who were, you know, trying to maintain a way of life as
  • 00:23:41 - 2372 lumberjacks were probably losing kids, too, and didn't know it. And there was a trade-off there that they weren't even aware of until somebody like Rachel Carson said that very tiny amounts of very toxic chemicals may be out there. Go and look and find them before they find you.
  • DT: Were there other animals or fish that might have been affected by projects that you've managed to take a look at during your tenure?
  • 00:24:11 - 2372 JF: Well, I wouldn't go so far as-as to say fish were dying of it, it was more like fish weren't even born of it. Th-this is the-the phenomenon of-of-of freshwater inflows. You know, every project that-that I dealt with had something to do with water. And-and some more than others. Of course, you know, a dam project or a water pipeline project, yes, definitely had to do with water. But towards the end of-of my
  • 00:24:43 - 2372
  • session with Fish and Wildlife Service I got very much involved with Texas's water planning process. Yeah, the Regional Water Planning groups. I couldn't become a member of one, but I could go to a lot of meetings, and I went to meetings for as far away as-let's see-Region K, definitely Region N-that's the-the one there in-in the Corpus Christi area-a little bit of Region L, because San Antonio is trying to take water away from Region N, and even as far down as-as this part of-of-of Texas, down in
  • 00:25:18 - 2372 the valley. So I went to a lot of meetings. And I oversaw some of the stuff that other Fish and Wildlife Service individuals went to. And essentially I sent in an awful lot of comments. And-and to this day, I still go to the some of those meetings. And-and I'm I'm-I'm desperately interested to know what is going to happen to the whole of Nueces River Basin, because what happens in the upper end effects the fishing on the lower end. And you know where I am about the fishing.
  • DT: Can you play out the connection between the dam...
  • 00:25:54 - 2372
  • JF: Yes.
  • DT: ...and the upstream portion and the fish population ... 00:25:57 - 2372 JF: Well, it's-it's really spooky. I'll-I'm-I'm going to take it even a step beyond that. You know, this is what water process that nobody knows that much about. But I mentioned a couple of regions, one taking from another. Okay. The area around San Antonio for years subsisted almost entirely on groundwater. It's only recently that they have tried to come up with surface water. And-and I got involved in-in one of-one of the silliest ones of that, one-one of the projects hat never got built, the Applewhite -
  • 00:26:34 - 2372
  • Applewhite Reservoir. But among the things that they needed to do this for was to get away from the dependence on groundwater, which was resulting in lowering of water levels in wells and springs that had endangered species. So project manager says we need to take surface water because that's good for endangered species. But here was the catch. One of the things that was proposed to increase the amount of water that San
  • 00:27:05 - 2372 Antonio could get their hands on was to build a bunch of little reservoirs, little tiny guys, on the headwaters of the Nueces River, on little branches like-oh, let's see-several of the Frio, and, and I think the Sabinal, and so forth. These all flow downstream and eventually either go into Choke Canyon Reservoir, which is one that Corpus Christi depends on very highly, or Lake Corpus Christi, which is the second one that they depend on
  • 00:27:37 - 2372 very highly. What they were proposing to do up in these headwaters is build a little dam over an area that's a recharge zone for the Edwards Aquifer. So that instead of running across the hard ground and a little bit of it falling in the cracks, it would all have to stay there a while, so it could all fall in the cracks. And ultimately, that would result in maybe three to six percent of the water that would have gotten to the Gulf of Mexico not getting
  • 00:28:07 - 2372 there by way of Nueces Bay. Nueces Bay having less water means less fish, less shrimp, less oysters, less of a lot of things, all of which affect me directly, and affect the economy of Corpus Christi. Now we're essentially doing this for another region and for another set of-of ecology.
  • Rather than San Antonio not sucking so much through the straw, or sucking it out of somebody else's straw, why don't they just slow down? They don't need more water, they need fewer people. They don't necessarily need fewer people,
  • 00:28:52 - 2372 they need fewer people doing ridiculous things with the water, you know, like building more golf courses, some of which are being built over the headwaters of their underground system, which means that whatever they pump onto that golf course will go in to their aquifer, and then they'll have to drink it. It's known as "fouling your nest." Now, to me, I think one of the worst things that has occurred in-involving the Texas
  • 00:29:23 - 2372 Water Planning Process is that when we developed all these separate regional plans, the regional planners employed the same consultants to write their plans, so that they all became the same plan, which is how Region N suddenly sees taking water away to put in Region L in its plan. Huh? Well, there's a connection.
  • Recognizing that there would be an impact on the Nueces, perhaps San Antonio can give Corpus Christi money to build a de-sal plant to mitigate for the impact to Nueces Bay. Sounds neat, except that
  • 00:30:15 - 2372 desalinization creates a brine which if pumped back into the bay makes it that much saltier. And you already have a problem with it becoming saltier because you took more fresh water out.
  • Isn't it better just to leave the water where it is? Region N for the time being has enough water for itself if it doesn't try to export it. In fact, they've already reached well outside their own regional area. They built a one hundred and five mile
  • 00:30:40 - 2372 long straw of their own up the coast to take water from Lake Texana. They've managed to do it just under the wire before state legislation changed the ability to take inter-basin water through a transfer like that. So, you know, luck or design, I don't know what it was, but it means that now Corpus Christi has three sources of water to draw on instead of only two. San Antonio, on the other hand, is not living within its means, and doesn't
  • 00:31:09 - 2372 plan to. Ultimately, they will use up every source within hundreds of miles whether it belongs to them or not, which means they'll have to actually pay to get it. And the only thing that will stop San Antonio or anybody else in a similar fix is the actual cost of this. This will become more valuable than oil. Just ask T. Boone Pickens, because he wants to sell some to you already.
  • DT: We've talked a little bit about a number of different kinds of proposals that you've reviewed, you know, from oil and gas projects to development projects to dredging and wildlife, water. Maybe talk a little bit about the process of-I-I think that some people have criticized environmental impacts reviews that are sometimes segmented. You know, they'll take a big project and they'll cut it into little bits that have no significant impact.
  • 00:32:13 - 2372
  • JF: Right. DT: Or they'll loo-so reduce the scope of the study by ignoring cumulative impacts...
  • 00:32:22 - 2372
  • JF: Right. DT: things that are secondary and tertiary kinds of effects. I was wondering if there are any examples that come to mind of reviews where you've seen that kind of manipulation of the process.
  • 00:32:37 - 2372
  • JF: The segmentation and-and-yeah. Yeah. And-and a similar phenomenon is to-is to not look at the scope of the project, as you say as-as widely as you might. You know, if you don't bring everything into it, you can't look at the cumulative impacts. I've seen this at a-at a considerable extreme on-in the town of South Padre Island involving the Piping Plover. For years, of course, the Corps of Engineers has had to issue a permit for every bulkhead, for every little fill, for every channel that's dredged, for
  • 00:33:08 - 2372 every pier that's constructed, all on the backside of South Padre Island. And this is both a physical place-you know, geologically speaking, it's the south end of-of that barrier island, it's also the name of the town-South Padre Island. Well, all these permits, as they-as they would come along, are going to impact a little bit of Piping Plover habitat. Depends on specifically where you are how much of that there might be. And I had seen a lot of permits come along-oh, I think the bird was listed in 1983, so you know, by
  • 00:33:43 - 2372
  • 1990 I'd seen quite a few of these permits, and there had been a lot of, you know, construction that was done before I even came along. So-one day in the process of doing one of these-these informal consultations for the Corps, preparatory to maybe doing a, you know, a bigger one, I began to think, you know, has anybody ever looked to see about the cumulative impacts? Because, you know, the Corps in every single public
  • 00:34:10 - 2372 notice of every single application has the same language. You know, "This-this project may involve endangered species habitat." You know, but then they would later publish another document, their statement of findings, in which they've found no impact, individual or cumulative, although they looked at each of these projects individually. And we knew this was the case.
  • So I took the time to ask the Corps to send me all the
  • 00:34:44 - 2372 stuff that we didn't have in our files, as much as we could find, of all these permits up and down that stretch of, I don't know, eight or ten miles of the backside of-of the island, and looked at each one's description, what kind of habitat was there and what happened to it, and made an estimate of how much Piping Plover habitat had been lost. And then I came back to the Corps of Engineers in a-in a formal opinion, and I said this
  • 00:35:12 - 2372
  • is the cumulative impact which you haven't looked at for all these years. I've taken the trouble, you know, to assume this much habitat got lost, that's the equivalent of the habitat for this many Piping Plovers. That's how many you've taken. "Taken" being a legal term. You know, you-you destroyed their habitat so they're not there anymore. If you think they moved over, maybe they did, but they have to compete with another bird, so now you've got two birds impacted for every one that you've messed with, because
  • 00:35:42 - 2372 now they're sharing habitat and don't have as much to go around. So I said, you know, this is it. This is how many acres of habitat we have lost. From now on, when you issue a permit, add to that this number-is what you start with-add to it how much more you've taken, and keep an accurate analysis going. I've done all your homework except what you will do in the future. Now, to my knowledge, this was probably done eight years ago. You know how many additional cumulative impact analyses the Corps has
  • 00:36:27 done to South Padre Island? (Showing by hand the number zero) That many. So legally, if somebody down there was feeling really, you know, mean about it, they have a prima fascia case for a violation of Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act because the Corps did not carry out what is know as "a reasonable and prudent alternative." They didn't do what they should have done. This was a measure that they were supposed to take. Simply keep track of what you're losing. They didn't do it.
  • DT: Can you talk a little bit about this-what seems to me a culture clash between the Fish and Wildlife Service, which I guess is made up of a lot of scientists as you think about impact over many years of a large, you know, swaths of area. And then the engineers at the Army Corps of Engineers that seem to have a much more kind of myopic view of their project scope, and the number of months, weeks, maybe years that they need to consider as-as-as impacts. So do you-do you see that there's kind of disconnect there?
  • 00:37:45 - 2372
  • JF: Well, it-no.
  • DT: Or-well, why do you all often clash?
  • 00:37:47 - 2372 JF: No. It's-it's a bowling shirt thing, and-and the clash was-was, for a long time, pretty severe. I mean all the-all the environmental agencies and the construction agencies were at each other's throats. They were-they were, you know, into this bowling shirt thing, you know. I work for this agency, therefore, I am-you know, it's like the South shall rise again if-if-if you Yankees say something to me. You know, that-it wasn't so much a matter of, even though I've s-I've mentioned it, a matter of
  • 00:38:17 - 2372 engineers versus biologists. It wasn't that so much, it was simply one agency versus another agency. It got so bad, this lack of communication back and forth, that the regional director of the Fish and Wildlife Service and the district engineer of the Corps of Engineers at both the Galveston and the-no, excuse me, I take that back. It was the-it was the division engineer who would have been overseeing all the-the district offices of the Corps here in the state. Anyway, the two of them got together, not once, but twice to
  • 00:38:52 - 2372
  • bring together all of these bureaucrats, the lower level ones. The biologists like me, the engineers, the project people, the managers, and so forth, and the-they brought them all together with some facilitator types who were experts in-in-in humans. And they gave us all Myers-Briggs personality profile tests. And you know what was funny about that?
  • 00:39:23 - 2372
  • Well, two things really. Ninety-five percent of the people, whether they were engineers or biologists or whatever, managers, field types, all had the same personality-ISTJ. I have it. Okay? Don't ask me what it all stands for. Okay. But they were all the same personality. And the significant thing was, said this facilitator, is that, well, these-in general, these are the people who make appointments and keep them. They are always
  • 00:40:00 - 2372
  • nervous around people who don't. You know, they make lists, and they-they follow them. Okay, they are very deliberate. But they cannot communicate with someone with the same personality profile. And that was the problem all along. And people looked like this at each other across the room.
  • DT: Can you communicate with someone with a different list, but a list?
  • 00:40:27 - 2372
  • JF: Yeah. Different list, but I meant these people think alike, and they cannot talk to each other. Odd as that seems. So that's part of what the problem is. The majority of b-of bureaucrats are unable to communicate with each other and cooperate with each other, even though they work for the same government, even though they have the same resources either-that they either control or try to protect, and they're at each other's
  • 00:40:54 - 2372 throats for a personality conflict. It's amazing to me, but this been-this has been recognized officially more than once, and nobody's ever done a thing about it. Now, everybody swore at the end of the meeting, oh, we're going to try, you know, commun-communicate, when we write something we won't take it personally, if somebody comes back with, you know, critical comments of it. It's just that he didn't understand what I
  • 00:41:18 - 2372 meant to say. Well, we got in our cars and we headed back to Corpus Christi from Bandera, which is where this took place-nice little dude ranch or something that-that they put us up at while we were having this-this fun-fun thing. And on the way back my boss turns to me and says, you know, that all sounded real good, but I'm not changing
  • 00:41:43 - 2372 one thing. And he didn't. We have a failure to mun-communicate at-at all levels. Look what just happened with-with Hurricane Katrina. Do you think after all the testimony that's occurred that we will be able to prevent the same kind of mess happening again? Not unless we've learned to communicate on an individual level.
  • DT: Well, speaking of communication, you worked for, gosh, a generation practically at the Fish and Wildlife Service, and then, was it six or seven years ago you retired?
  • 00:42:25 - 2372
  • JF: Not that long ago. Yeah. April 2001.
  • DT: (?)-I'm sorry, five years ago. And have become a letter to the editor, LTTE writer...
  • 00:42:36 - 2372
  • JF: Yes.
  • DT: ...and-and of, sort of private ombudsman for a lot of these same projects that concerned you when you worked...
  • 00:42:44 - 2372
  • JF: Yes. I still work on LNG projects, although I don't get paid for it. I still work on-on oil and gas activities, I don't get paid for it. I just do it be...
  • DT: Why don't you talk about some of these projects...
  • 00:42:54 - 2372 JF: These are-these-these are-these are things that-well, I can't get out of my-my skin. I mean they're-they're embedded there. After a good deal of a lifetime believing that these were the right things to do, I feel like Wilford Brimley. That's why I'm going to do them. Now, these-these-these are issues that the majority of the
  • 00:43:15 - 2372 people don't have time to address themselves unless they're paid to do it. But I benefit just as much as the rest of the folks if somebody does it. And if the people that who are being paid have something else to do, there's no reason why I shouldn't step in and volunteer to do it.
  • DT: Well, one issue that you've been working that really seems important, and-and that's this open beaches tradition in Texas.
  • 00:43:42 - 2372
  • JF: Yeah. It's a-it's more than a tradition, it's-it's on the books. You know, the state of Texas, unlike just about everywhere but Oregon, has a law that says you can drive on the beach because it was historically used as a thoroughfare back before we had decent roads, as a matter of fact. So everyone in theory has the right to drive and park and recreate from his vehicle on the public beach. The problem is there are all these
  • 00:44:10 - 2372 exemptions to the rule, and the exemptions have been getting more and more frequent. And there is a-a very real threat that some day the exemption will be the whole rule.
  • Places like the west end, for example, of Galveston Island. When I was going to school, I did a lot of my-my undergraduate and graduate work at a campus in Galveston and lived at the Gave-Galveston campus. Used to could just take off a little bit to the west of there, once you got past the-the big seawall, you could drive on the beach all the
  • 00:44:44 - 2372
  • way to San Luis Pass. You know, a-a matter of a good many miles. Now twenty-two miles of that beach are closed to driving. You can access them maybe about every mile and a half, but only if you park and walk over the dunes and down. Unless of course you live there. And that's really what the point has been all along.
  • Now the same thing has also occurred at South Padre Island, the town. You cannot drive on the beach in front of
  • 00:45:12 - 2372
  • all those condos and hotels. You can park and walk between the buildings, and that's it. Corpus Christi's different. Now there are areas where there is control. You can't go into the National Seashore. For the first few miles you can drive, but then you come to a gate, and you come to an area that is separated. It's called Malaquite Beach. And for several miles, Malaquite Beach is pedestrian access only. But once you get past that, you can
  • 00:45:39 - 2372 drive another seventy miles on the beach, which is way I have a four wheel drive vehicle with a rod rack on the front so I can drive on the beach and go surfing. This is very personal to me.
  • But if you go north, you go a few miles, about eight miles, and you come to Bob Hall Pier. Now there's an area there around a county park where driving on the
  • 00:45:58 - 2372 beach is not prevented, but it's restricted. You can't get too close to the water. There's a whole row of little bollards that prevent you from doing that. So you can park and step out of the car and you're right there. It's really not a-a-an obstruction as such, you just can't drive to the water's edge. That means that pedestrians are safe. But they could literally park two feet from where they got to the beach. You go up the beach a little
  • 00:46:25 - 2372 ways from that, and you come to a problem. It was a greater problem than it was just a-a-a few months ago. In the, oh, around 1970, a developer chose to build a seawall. And since that seawall was constructed, the sand washed away in front of it. So-at high tide you couldn't drive in front of it any longer. There was a physical barrier. This happened to run counter to the Open Beaches Act, because among other things, the Open
  • 00:46:56 - 2372
  • Beaches Act does is-is establish that the beach is public, and that the beach is an access area that will be no less than two hundred feet wide, or from the vegetation line to the water, whichever is greater. Well, that erosion meant that that two hundred feet was now landward to the seawall. And there's a-a little anecdote that goes around, that because of the Open Beaches Act, you could at this time have camped in the middle of the lobby
  • 00:47:28 - 2372 of the Holiday Inn at North Padre Island because legally you would have been on public land. Well, they changed the rules in 1995. They made that seawall the "vegetation line." But that didn't help us as far as being able to drive on the beach. So the same rule said that you will provide a parking lot and allow access to that seawall in the area adjacent to it so the people can still use the beach under the Open Beaches Act even though they can't drive on it any longer.
  • All that changed in a-a matter of months
  • 00:48:02 - 2372 because another project came along. This one-this one sanctioned. This one actually done by the public for the public. It's called the Packery Channel Reopening Project. The sand taken from the dredging of that channel was put back in front of the seawall. Wonderful! Okay? But a problem arose. At the same time this was occurring, the city of Corpus Christi, going back to some language in that exemption that was written into the
  • 00:48:36 - 2372
  • Act, said that now that we have built this, or intend to build this parking lot, we're going to close access to the beach by vehicles in front of it. Even though we just spent thirty million dollars to put sand in front of it, and make the beach wide enough to drive on it, we'll no longer let you do that. That's where I got involved, and since July I've been fighting that. The-the city of Corpus Christi actually passed an ordinance in October
  • 00:49:04 - 2372
  • closing that section of beach. I joined a-a group that petitioned for a referendum to offset the ordinance. At the end of-about five weeks after much promising, some of it writing, that we will never close any more of this beach by the city council.
  • They made this affirmation in writing to the Texas General Land Offices permission they have to close a beach like that, a developer came in, I believe it was December 8th, and said I have to
  • 00:49:39 - 2372
  • have more beach closed in addition to this original forty-two hundred, I actually need seventy-four hundred all together-close all the beach from that seawall to Packery Channel, and from that seawall at the southern end down to that county park at Bob Hall Pier-close it all, or my money, which is-as it turns out, a Canadian organization on know as InterWest, will go elsewhere and they won't spend one and a half billion dollars in making a mega resort for which they need the beaches closed. Why do they need the
  • 00:50:17 - 2372 beaches closed? Because that's essentially privatizing them. Most people will not walk more than a few hundred yards from where they park their car. There is a real good reason for that if you'll stop and think about it, it's because they don't know if the car will be there when they get back. Or if they leave the kids on the beach while they go back to the car to get what they forgot, something may happen to the kids. I-you know, you-
  • 00:50:42 - 2372 you get the point. If you can't drive and park on the beach, then as far as I'm concerned, and I think the majority of the people in the city of Corpus Christi are concerned, you lose the whole point of the Open Beaches Act. It's no longer open. It's become a private beach. (misc.)
  • DT: We've been talking about-about beaches, and clearly something that you hold dear. But I'm wondering if-if beaches, or maybe some other place, is-is something that is-is very important to you and reminds you of why you became involved in wildlife research and protection, the Fish and Wildlife Service in the first place?
  • 00:51:22 - 2372
  • JF: If you-if you think about beaches, certainly the middle of-of the-the National Seashore is one of my favorite places. I mean that's-a lot of my money and a lot of my time's been spent down there, and I love the place. You know, I would do most anything to-to keep it the way it is. Garner State Park is another one of my favorite places, and I-and I hope, although I haven't been there in years myself, but a lot of people continue
  • 00:51:45 - 2372 to use it, not to the point that it disappears like some of Yellowstone maybe, you know, or Yosemite, that we don't-we don't kill it with kindness, but you know, but still kill it. And a little place in West Texas that I plan to be in in about a month, is a area south of Alpine that's totally different from the beach, totally different from Garner Park. It's a piece of the Chihuahuan Desert, and it's full of agates. And I just love to, you know, go
  • 00:52:14 - 2372 out there and collect, and-I cut a lot of it up and I've given most of it away as much as I can, because it's just enjoyable.
  • I'd like to see-I like to see kids with the same opportunities I had to get out and-and see that kind of the world, to-to go out and-and-and do things that-that seem kind of wild to somebody who grew up in a city, which I essentially did. You know, I didn't have the childhood that my parents did. I
  • 00:52:42 - 2372 would probably be still out there in the woods if I had-had that kind of opportunity. Texas is a different sort of place, and-and-and I love it to-to death, but I've been around a few other spots. There's-there's some parts of Alaska I definitely want to visit again. And-spent a couple years as a kid in Hawaii, and there's things I'd like to do there, but I know I can never do again. My advice to-to-to-to people is to-to try
  • 00:53:10 - 2372
  • and think of ways that the world has changed since you were a child, and figure out if you can, how to sustain that for the next generation. You want them to be as happy as you were as a child. I know most-most childhood memories for anyone are probably good. But as you grow older you begin to see things that are missing, or things that
  • 00:53:34 - 2372
  • have-have-have turned for the worse. And you know, you know that they shouldn't be that way. That the right thing to do is to not turn the clock back exactly, but to keep those-those happy little places still available. You know, the whole world still needs them.
  • DT: Well, thanks. Is there anything you'd like to add?
  • 00:53:57 - 2372
  • JF: Oh, I could go on for hours. Let's not do that, please.
  • DT: Fair enough. Well, thanks very much for your time.
  • 00:54:03 - 2372 JF: I had a wonderful time doing it.
  • DT: Good. Thanks.
  • 00:54:08 - 2372 JF: Thank you both for your...