Ned Fritz's Environmental Crusades

CREEKS AND OPEN SPACES: NED FRITZ’S ENVIRONMENTAL CRUSADES Jared Ingram, B.A., M.A. Dissertation Prepared for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS May 2020 APPROVED: Michael Wise, Committee Chair Randolph B. Campbell, Committee Member Sandra Mendiola-Garcia, Committee Member Irene Klaver, Committee Member Jennifer J. Wallach, Committee Member and Chair of the Department of History Tamara L. Brown, Executive Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences Victor Prybutok, Dean of the Toulouse Graduate School Ingram, Jared. Creeks and Open Spaces: Ned Fritz’s Environmental Crusades. Doctor of Philosophy (History), May 2020, 258 pp., 3 figures, bibliography, 77 primary resources, 105 secondary resources. Edward C. Fritz was one of the most influential environmentalists in Texas history. Although he took a circuitous route to environmental activism, Fritz evolved into a powerful force fighting on behalf of Texan nature. Participating in substantial actions throughout the second half of the twentieth century, Fritz’s contributions to environmental activism resulted in the successful preservation of thousands of acres and multiple wildlife species. Fritz parlayed his legal background into effective activism, beginning his career with a successful lobbying campaign for protection of Harris Hawks. He led the campaign to stop a decades old plan for canalization of the Trinity River. The creation of COST combined Fritz’s environmental focus with the concerns of economic conservatives to prevent a billion dollar government funded project that would have significantly altered the river. Fritz then led a cadre who took over efforts to establish a preserve in the Big Thicket national forest. He oversaw the foundation of a protected area far larger than original expectations, capitalizing on the growing awareness of environmental issues in the 1970s. Fritz’s interest in the Big Thicket led to a fight against the Forest Service’s practice of clearcutting and its effect on Red Cockaded Woodpeckers. Through litigation and legislation, Fritz fostered a grassroots movement aimed at reforming management of the national forests, saw the establishment of the state’s first wilderness, and saved the declining population of the woodpeckers. For his tireless approach and lifelong achievements, Fritz was given the title of “Father of Texas Conservation.” Copyright 2020 By Jared Ingram ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 2. JOINING THE FIGHT: NED FRITZ’S FIRST STEPS AS A CONSERVATIONIST .................................................................................................... 26 CHAPTER 3. WELCOME TO THE WIDER WORLD OF ENVIRONMENTALISM ........ 47 CHAPTER 4. FLOOD CONTROL: NED FRITZ AND THE FIGHT AGAINST THE TRINITY RIVER CANAL ............................................................................................... 85 History of the Trinity Barge Canal ....................................................................... 90 Ned Leads a Response to Save the Trinity ...................................................... 101 CHAPTER 5. THE BATTLE OVER CLEAR-CUTTING: NED FRITZ’S FIGHT IN THE FOREST ...................................................................................................................... 121 Ned Fritz Finds His Nemesis: Clear-Cutting in the National Forests ................ 124 Ned Fritz Sues the Forest Service .................................................................... 140 The Four Notch Lawsuit ................................................................................... 148 CHAPTER 6. NED FRITZ IN THE 80s: NEW FRONTS IN THE FIGHT FOR THE FORESTS ................................................................................................................... 168 Establishing the First Texas Wilderness ........................................................... 180 Ned Fritz’s Radical Interlude: Population and Immigration Control ................... 185 Pine Beetles and Woodpeckers: Escalation in the Fight over East Texas Forests ......................................................................................................................... 192 CHAPTER 7. CONCLUSION: NED FRITZ’S LATE STAGE ENVIRONMENTALISM, 1988-2008 ................................................................................................................... 229 BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................................................... 248 iii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Edward C. Fritz was an influential Texas environmentalist who participated in many of the state’s important environmental battles in the second half of the twentieth century. Gaining his fame through public battles for preservation of the Big Thicket Forest, the Trinity River, and a lawsuit over timber cuts in the National Forests, Fritz became a central figure in Texas’ environmental movement. Although granted the honorary sobriquet “The Father of Texas Conservation” near the end of his career, Ned Fritz’s decades of work as an environmental advocate represented far more to the history of environmentalism in Texas, and beyond, than the narrow categories of “father” and “conservation” indicate. The notoriety he earned was so influential that he became known simply as Ned by his fellow environmentalists. Ned did not so much serve as an autonomous parent, or even patriarch, of environmental advocacy. Rather, as a lawyer trained originally in helping the poor and underrepresented, and as a long- time admirer of the nonhuman world, he was swept into the legal challenges to industrial pollution and suburban development that defined the rise of environmentalism and environmental advocacy in the United States following the Second World War. Ned Fritz and environmentalism grew up together. The organizations that Fritz helped to establish and lead functioned as platforms for representing trees, water, birds, weeds, and other nonhuman beings according to the principles of an emerging environmental ethic committed to addressing political issues as issues embedded within a holistic ecology. His environmental advocacy broke squarely away from the older visions of conservation that had defined natural resource law in the United States in previous 1 generations. Ned held much more in common with Rachel Carson than with Gifford Pinchot or Theodore Roosevelt, pushing for more proactive solutions to environmental threats to the nation’s forests, rivers, and wildlife that were premised on an understanding of ecological interconnection. Ultimately, Fritz’s work on the Trinity River cemented his reputation as a powerful challenger to the forces of government and industry that pushed for endless development no matter the environmental cost. However, Fritz’s sensibilities as an environmentalist emerged and also evolved over the course of his long career as a consumer credit attorney, as an advocate and lawyer for environmental causes, and as a leader on the front lines of Texas’ environmental movement. Fritz embarked upon full-time environmental advocacy in the early 1970s. But he had developed his interests in environmental issues over a period of decades, with his attention to advocacy fostered through his experiences and outrage at what he perceived to be human attacks on a defenseless nonhuman world. Although his most important contributions to the movement all took place after his career shift to working as a full-time environmentalist, the features of his future success were evident much earlier. Understanding the life he led prior to transitioning into the environmental movement helps explain the factors motivating his involvement. Although most of Ned’s actions during the early years were devoted to establishing his legal career, the influences from his childhood interest in wildlife, the skills he gained as a lawyer and organizer, and his earnest belief in the righteousness of his cause were already on display throughout his youth and early career. Tracing the effect of events in his 2 childhood, education, and the early years of his career will explain the ingredients of his later effectiveness. Fritz’s name itself evolved as his career transitioned. His professional name of Edward C. Fritz was replaced by his childhood nickname of Ned as he advanced through his career in the environmental movement. The evolution of his name will be reflected in this biography, with the name switching from Fritz to Ned at the same time as they changed in his life. Many of the terms related to his environmental career also require clarification. One example is in the proper term to classify his time in the environmental movement. There are many aspects of the title, “the Father of Texas Conservation,” that make it an inaccurate sobriquet for describing Fritz’s advocacy work. Conservation came into usage around the start of the twentieth century, premised, in the United States at least, around the concept of wise use—“the greatest good, for the greatest number, for the longest time” as Gifford Pinchot’s famous maxim put it. During the Progressive Era, the professionalization of Pinchot’s U.S. Forest Service, as well as the creation of other land and natural resource management agencies at both federal and state levels, marked a major transformation in American environmental policy as government took an active role in practicing these new conservation principles in resource development. By the

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