A Desert Owl Takes on a Freeway

A tiny, threatened owl species in the Southwestern desert could spell doom for a major interstate freeway project. As Kea Wilson explains in Streetsblog USA, a lawsuit brought by environmental groups charges that the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) proposal to build Interstate 11 through Arizona could decimate the owl population and destroy fragile desert habitat.

“Lead by the Center for Biological Diversity, the suit builds upon a 2022 legal challenge which alleged that the FHWA had missed critical environmental review steps required under the Environmental Protection Act when it first proposed the western and eastern options for the highway — and now, they say it's also in violation of the Endangered Species Act, since the pygmy owl was federally designated as "threatened" in July of 2023.”

Despite the owl’s diminutive size, Wilson notes that its status as apex predator means any impacts on the owl species could reverberate across the local food chain.

The threat to the pygmy owl isn’t the only objection people have to the freeway project. The region’s water supply is already severely strained. “If I-11 is built, though, it will almost certainly usher in a spate of new development which the Center for Biological Diversity estimates will multiply the population tenfold — and multiply water use to a staggering 1,180 percent.” The environmental analysis did not take potential new water needs into account. Meanwhile, community advocates say building the road through Tucson would deepen existing inequalities and further divide communities.

Russ McSpadden, Southwest conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity, urges Arizona to “confront its transportation challenges without building a brand new mega-highway — by expanding transit services, bike lanes, and pedestrian infrastructure within mega-metros that already exist, rather than exhausting those funds for water-draining, suburb-spawning highways.”