Coos Bay, Oregon - March 20, 2002 - The Coos County Board of Commissioners needs support.  Commissioners Pete DeMain and Nikki Whitty are under withering assaults from environmental
radicals to back down from a county lawsuit against the US Fish and Wildlife Service.  They are receiving dozens of letters, calls and emails from radicals who hope they can make them waffle at this critical
time.  The formal complaint has not yet been filed in U.S.  District Court for Oregon, only the 60-day notice back in January. They need to hear from other Americans who have been steamrolled by
misinterpretations of the Endangered Species Act. Please write emails of support to them at nwhitty@co.coos.or.us 

pdemain@co.coos.or.us 

The third county commissioner is John Griffith, who enlisted Pacific Legal Foundation to take the case on behalf of his county.  His email is jgriffith@co.coos.or.us The case involves the Pacific coast population of the western snowy plover, a ground nesting bird that predators love to eat.  Agencies have been closing beaches to recreation and letting crows pick off all the plovers and plover nests.  Coos County
plans to sue under the same Endangered Species Act section that led to the stunning New Mexico Cattlegrowers victory last May, which has environmental radicals scared to death. Radicals are fighting back by their usual methods: lots of emails, calls and letters to make their side look bigger than it really is.


Commissioners have taken on the U.S.  Fish and Wildlife Service by filing a notice to sue on their allegation that the service failed to do the Endangered Species Act-required economic and social impacts analysis before designating critical habitat for the western snowy plover.


Beach closures as a result of the critical habitat in SW Oregon started in 1994 with 1/2 mile and has increased to 18 miles in 2002.