The Nation: Dammed Lousewort

When Congress passed the Endangered Species Act in 1973, it never dreamed that an obscure northern Maine wild flower might some day block the construction of a $668 million hydroelectric project. But it reckoned without the mighty Furbish lousewort, a plant thought extinct until some 30 specimens were discovered last year in an area destined for flooding by the proposed Dickey-Lincoln dam project. The lousewort is expected to become one of the first plants included in the Interior Department’s endangered-species list, and if environmental concerns prevail, Dickey-Lincoln may have to be redesigned or perhaps even scrapped.

The Mississippi sandhill crane and the three-inch snail darter of the Little Tennessee River have already halted state and federal bulldozers, and the leopard darter may do the same in Oklahoma. Soon to join the Furbish lousewort on the Interior Department’s list of protected plants is the monkshood, a poisonous wild flower. It is threatened by the La Farge Dam project in Wisconsin. Or vice versa.