FRANKFORT, Ky., Jan. 10 (UPI) -- It will be up to state officials to decide whether to allow Core Management Inc. to open a strip mine operation along a Knox County stream that may endanger the blackside dace, a rare fish.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service endorsed a plan to transplant the small Appalachian fish, whose habitat would be destroyed by the proposed mining operation. The wildlife service's decision is believed the first involving a creature protected by the Endangered Species Act.
"It's not something that we are happy about," Lee Barclay, a supervisor for the wildlife service's Tennessee field office told Thursday's Louisville Courier-Journal.
Environmental officials say the wildlife service has misinterpreted its policy.
"The idea you can protect a species by removing it from its habitat is Orwellian in its scope," said Tom FitzGerald, an attorney with the Kentucky Resources Council.
A spokesman for the Kentucky Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Cabinet said more consultations with the federal government and the mining company are necessary before any decision can be rendered.
Core Management is seeking permission to surface mine coal in an area near Daniel Boone National Forest. In June, a consulting biologist hired by the company to survey an unnamed creek, a tributary of Acorn Fork, for aquatic insects found one of the rare fish. Barclay said his biologists were dispatched to the creek and they found 79 dace.
The fish's current habitat is less than 3 feet wide. When it dries up some summers, the fish move into Acorn Fork.
The blackside dace is 3 inches in length and has been found in 35 places -- short reaches of creeks or streams along the Cumberland River system. It was declared an endangered species 15 years ago.
The proposed transplantation would move some of the fish to another creek and the rest to a federal hatchery. The hatchery fish would be returned to the creek after the mining operation is completed and the land reclaimed. The question is whether Core can do a good enough job of reclaiming the stream. Wildlife officials said that may be difficult.
Don B. Mills, who owns the land targeted for the mining operation, called the situation absurd.
"I think it's unfortunate that a little minnow can keep someone from mining a couple million tons of coal," he told the newspaper.
