BartonSpringsSalamander_MusicandPolitics_Bunch_Bill_AustinTX_10November2023_Reel4180.mp3

Bill Bunch [00:00:00] We had been working in that early years of the Save Our Springs movement, where there was a big push that was successful, where a group of environmental leaders from different groups came together to draft our own ordinance that would strictly limit development in the Barton Springs watershed, at least that part of the watershed that's under the City of Austin's jurisdiction to regulate.

Bill Bunch [00:00:23] We drafted our own petition to limit that development, and it was called the Save Our Springs Ordinance. Under the City Charter, ... we petitioned it ... and it was approved by Austin voters by a landslide, basically 2 to 1, in August of 1992.

Bill Bunch [00:00:39] We knew that the rest of the watershed, the other two thirds, were outside the City of Austin's jurisdiction. And so, that that wasn't going to be enough to really protect the springs.

Bill Bunch [00:00:50] We also knew that developers were going to be attacking the ordinance both in the legislature and the courts, and that there needed to be more.

Bill Bunch [00:00:58] And so when we learned that, yes, these scientists that U.T. had in fact identified this salamander as unique to Barton Springs, we knew then that it would warrant listing as endangered, because of its narrow range and its vulnerability to the urbanization of Austin.

Bill Bunch [00:01:18] And so, Mark Kirkpatrick, the biology professor at U.T., ... joined with his wife, Barbara Mahler, who at that time was working on her Ph.D. at U.T. in hydrogeology, and they joined together to draft an official petition to list the Barton Springs salamander as endangered ... I worked with them and helped them sort of put it in the legal framework. And they filed that petition. I want to say that was '94-ish or thereabouts ... In any event, it got filed.

Bill Bunch [00:01:51] And then there's a series of timelines that happened where they're supposed to do an initial review within 90 days and then a second round of review in the following 12 months. And then after that 15 months of review, they're supposed to either move towards listing and officially publishing a listing rule ..., or making a finding that the species is not warranted for listing, that the science and facts, the evidence available, doesn't support that.

Bill Bunch [00:02:19] So, of course they drug their feet. And we had to sue them ... to force this agency to make a determination.

Bill Bunch [00:02:27] They finally did, in response to that litigation, ... and did propose it for listing as endangered, based on their own biologists' review of the information and support for it.

Bill Bunch [00:02:40] And then, that's when the politics got involved.

Bill Bunch [00:02:43] And they were sitting on that. So, we had to sue a second time to get a final listing decision. They were refusing to make that decision.

Bill Bunch [00:02:53] And then, when they finally did, they decided not to list it because they had, at the 11th hour, Fish and Wildlife entered into an agreement with the State of Texas, under the auspices of then-Governor George Bush, that the state would take various measures that would protect the species. And under this last-minute agreement, the species would be protected without the listing.

Bill Bunch [00:03:19] And so, we were still in the courthouse under Judge Lucius Bunton... We immediately petitioned to say, "Hey, this last-minute agreement doesn't really protect the species under the Service's own criteria". A whole bunch of it was just voluntary, sort of vague things, like, "We'll try to do this and we'll try to do that".

Bill Bunch [00:03:41] And yet, what the agency itself had already written in its proposal to list the species identifying all these threats, the agreement that they were now using to justify not listing know it didn't address those.

Bill Bunch [00:03:56] So, Judge Bunton said, "No, sorry, this does not meet the dictates of the statute", which is you have to make that listing decision based on the best available scientific and commercial information...

Bill Bunch [00:04:09] So Judge Bunton kicked it back to the agency to try again...

Bill Bunch [00:04:13] At that point, we had learned that development interests in Austin had a direct path of lobbying into the White House and the President's Council on Environmental Quality, which is kind of an overseer of the other federal environmental agencies. And these were powerful Texas Democrats who had direct and long-standing ties with President Clinton, Vice President Gore, then-Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt.

Bill Bunch [00:04:43] And that that's where the real resistance was coming, that these powerful Democrats, in partnership with Governor Bush and Republican-leaning or -associated development interests were trying to block it.

Bill Bunch [00:04:56] So that's when we got involved in the politics side.

Bill Bunch [00:05:00] Jerry Jeff Walker, famous Austin musician, singer-songwriter, he and his wife Susan, who was his business manager, ... and they had done tons of benefits for Democratic candidates around the country, had tremendous support for the Democratic Party for years, never asking a single thing in return for that support...

Bill Bunch [00:05:24] And so, Susan and Jerry Jeff basically got a hold of Al Gore and said, "What the hell is going on? This is not okay... Your own scientists are telling you what the right answer is... You need to list the species. And oh, by the way, Earth Day is coming up. And how about let's do a big press release where Secretary Babbitt could make a news splash and announce the listing of the Barton Spring salamander as endangered on Earth Day?"

Bill Bunch [00:05:52] And that's what he did.

Bill Bunch [00:05:53] And so that ended the lawsuit.

Bill Bunch [00:05:55] And the species got listed ... April 30th, 1997.