[MPWG] Interior Dept. sued by Audubon over GMO's in Wildlife Refuge Areas

[Ipakatawo9 at aol.com]

GM WATCH daily
http://www.gmwatch.org
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U.S. Interior Dept. sued over GMO plantings
By Carey Gillam
Reuters, April 5, 2006
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/05/AR200604050235
7.html

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) - A coalition concerned about the cultivation 
of genetically modified crops in wildlife refuge areas filed suit against the 
U.S. Interior Department on Wednesday, saying government workers illegally 
approved the planting.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Wilmington, Delaware, seeks to 
block further cultivation of the crops at the Prime Hook refuge outside Dover, 
Delaware. Prime Hook is one of more than 500 federal wildlife refuges.

It named as defendants the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and its parent 
agency, the Interior Department. The plaintiffs are the Delaware Audubon Society, 
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and the Center for Food 
Safety.

The plaintiffs said they discovered "a top Bush administration political 
appointee" overruled the wildlife refuge manager in allowing the genetically 
altered crops to be planted on land designated as a national wildlife refuge in 
violation of department policy.

Officials with Fish and Wildlife and the Interior Department declined to 
comment immediately.

The plaintiffs say the genetically modified crops and the pesticides 
associated with growing them can have negative effects on birds, aquatic animals, 
other wildlife and plant species.

"These refuges are supposed to be for wildlife, not chemical companies or 
agribusiness," Gene Hocutt, a spokesman for Public Employees for Environmental 
Responsibility, or PEER, said in a statement announcing the lawsuit. "Plowing up 
native grasses for mutated row crops constitutes biological malpractice of 
the highest order and a betrayal of the purposes of the National Wildlife Refuge 
System."

As many as 100,000 acres of refuge lands are under cultivation to genetically 
modified crops, according to agency documents obtained by PEER under the 
Freedom of Information Act.




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