Houston Regional Group - News

Information obtained by the Sierra Club via a Freedom of Information Act request from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service shows that funding and full-time personnel levels for several national wildlife refuges (NWR) in Texas have been stagnating or declining over the past several years.

Refuge budgets and full-time personnel rise and fall incrementally over the 1998 through 2006 time period. For instance, only 1 full- time person was assigned to Big Boggy NWR in 2005-2007 which is down from 2 assigned it from 2000-2004. Brazoria NWR had 4 full-time persons in 2001 which dipped to 2 in 2005 and 2006 and then went back up to 3 in 2007. San Bernard NWR had 4 full-time people in 1998 which went down to 3 in 2002 and then went up to 5 in 2005 and 2006 but then dipped back down to 4 in 2007.

Laguna Atascosa NWR, in the Rio Grande Valley, lost 2 full-time people (11 to 9). The Lower Rio Grande NWR had as many as 21 full- time people in 2003 but now in 2007 is down to 12. Even the flagship of NWRs in Texas, the Aransas NWR, where the endangered Whooping Cranes winter, lost personnel. In 2001 Aransas NWR had 8 full-time people but in 2006 it had 4 full-time people.

For budgets the results are similar. In 1998 Big Boddy NWR had a budget of $121,000 but 8 years later the budget is $111,000. Laguna Atascosa NWR's budget was $852,000 in 1998 but 8 years later it is $777,000. The Lower Region Grande NWR's budget was $1,123,000 but 8 years later is $1,034,000. The Aransas NWR budget shrank from 2001 at $623,000 to $460,000 in 2006. From 2003 to 2006, the Trinity River NWR's budget has stayed virtually the same, from $480,000 to $432,000 to $444,000 to $480,000.

As reported in a previous issue of the Bayou Banner the Bush Administration has been starving the budget of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Recently, through the budget appropriations process Congress provided additional funds for the budget of the FWS. We will have to wait and see if the additional funding stays in the budget and whether Texas NWRs get their share so they can operate at closer to full budget.

July 2007

Last updated:  06/02/2007.   Content © 1999-2007 by the Sierra Club.