Endangered Plant May Protect Endangered River
The endangered Shasta snow wreath. Photo courtesy of Julie Nelson
It’s not common for a conspicuous but new-to-science shrub to be found in California, a well botanized state. But that’s what happened in 1992 with the discovery of the highly endemic Shasta snow wreath, Neviusia cliftonii, (Rosaceae, Kerrieae) growing around the shorelines of Shasta Reservoir.
But rare plant discoveries may have consequences. In 2015, The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (Service) reported that eleven of the twenty-four then-known populations would experience losses with the proposed expansion of Shasta Reservoir, and likely many others had already been extirpated by the reservoir.
The California Fish & Wildlife Commission made the species a candidate for endangered species status under the California Endangered Species Act in 2020, and this month it was fully listed. A petition for federal status is languishing with the Service.
Predictably, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s November 2020 Shasta Dam raise supplemental Environmental Impact Statement was supremely indifferent to the status of the snow wreath (and other provisions of state and federal law), and recommended illegally expanding the Reservoir violating the California Wild & Scenic Rivers Act by inundating a portion of the McCloud River.
The dam raise is currently on hold pending a return of the executive and legislative branches of the U.S. federal government to GOP control.
