Credit: USFWS |
In 1978, the US Supreme Court made a decision that would go down as a turning point for environmental law. It was all because of a tiny fish: the snail darter.
Earlier in the decade, this wispy, brown wriggly creature was the main reason federal officials had to stop building an expensive dam across the Little Tennessee River, a narrow body of water flowing between Georgia, North Carolina and its namesake state. The snail darter, listed as an endangered species since 1975, lived in that river. |
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Presumably, only in that river.
Therefore, constructing a dam across this animal's rare habitat, environmentalists argued while invoking rights of 1973's Endangered Species Act, risked putting an already vulnerable population under even more survival pressure. On the other hand, the Tennessee Valley Authority wanted to finish the dam it'd already invested about $100 million in, suggesting the river would simply flood without a sturdy structure. |
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