By Kelsie Jennings
KU Statehouse Wire Service

TOPEKA – The Sedgwick County Board of Commissioners would like to remove the eastern spotted skunk from Kansas’ endangered species list because they say it’s unnecessary and a waste of taxpayer’s money.

Sedgwick County Commission chairman Richard Ranzau said the endangered species list includes some species that shouldn’t be on it.

Ranzau said removing the skunk from the list would save money when doing things such as land banking for land development. He said the Sedgwick County had to spend $24,000 to move a project and land bank because the skunks inhabited the original area.

He said when the county also does stream maintenance, they’re required to build “brush piles” from the leftover trees and shrubs as habitats for the skunks. For some stream maintenance projects, the habitats are built on private property where owners tear them down forcing country workers to rebuild them. The county has also had to purchase action permits for projects that require replanting with special grass and building brush piles. Ranzau said all of this is unnecessary considering there aren’t many eastern spotted skunk sightings.

“Even if you do think they should be listed, nothing that we’re doing is having an effect on this and so we’re wasting time, money and effort,” he said. “From a tax payer point-of-view when I look at this, it just doesn’t make sense.”

When presenting Senate Bill 269 to the Senate Natural Resources Committee on Thursday, Ranzau told the senators his research showed the skunks are not indigenous to Kansas and should never have been on the list. He said the skunks migrated as settlers moved across the state.

“Why should we be concerned about it here in Kansas?” Ranzau said. “It should’ve never been listed to begin with.”

Ranzau said the commissioners are starting with the skunk because it’s caused the most trouble for the county’s public works department and is the easiest to remove, but said the entire endangered species list should be reviewed again because there are other animals on the list that don’t make sense.

“There’s a variety of issues that we could tackle, but you’ve got to start somewhere,” he said.

Several opponents to the bill gave written and verbal testimony, including the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism, Audubon of Kansas and the Kansas Chapter of the Sierra Club.

Secretary of the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism, Robin Jennison told the committee that the removal of the skunk would open the door for other species to be taken off the list in the future and could lead to a slippery slope.

“I think it’s a dangerous precedent to start listing species legislatively,” Jennison said. “I think when we start listing these species by what the popular perception is rather than the scientific reviewed and the process that we currently have in place, I
think that’s a dangerous thing.”

The secretary of the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism is responsible for deciding what species are endangered. There is a review every five years that involves going through the endangered species list.

The Sierra Club’s legislative director and lobbyist Zack Pistora also asked the committee to look at the situation scientifically. He addressed the risks involved such as the KDWPT losing federal funding if they don’t meet federal standards by sticking with the formal process of the Endangered Species Act of 1973, which requires the secretary of KDWPT to make the decision on what species should be protected. The Sierra Club’s written testimony says this is “obligatory, not optional.” He said it would also risk having federal agencies get involved.

“We encourage you to follow the due process laid out in front of us,” Pistora said.

Ranzau said the bill wouldn’t cost the state anything, and the fiscal note for the bill says it could possibly reduce costs to agencies by reducing the number of endangered permits that must be reviewed.

The Senate Natural Resources Committee will discuss SB 269 possibly next week after hearing other bills.

Kelsie Jennings is a University of Kansas senior from Olathe, majoring in journalism.

WABAUNSEE – A Kansas man was injured in an accident just after 4 p.m. on Saturday in Wabunsee County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2000 Pontiac Grand Prix driven by Davis, Charles Emmitt Davis, 53, Manhattan, was westbound on Interstate 70 just east of Wabaunsee in the right lane.

The vehicle left the road and struck the guardrail. The accident briefly closed westbound interstate traffic.

Davis was transported to Stormont Vail.
The KHP reported he was properly restrained at the time of the accident.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Kansas Supreme Court has thrown out the 50-year prison sentence of a man convicted of fatally shooting his uncle in 2008 in Kansas City, Kansas.

While ordering Friday that a Wyandotte County trial court resentence Mark Salary, the state’s high court upheld Salary’s first-degree murder conviction in the death of Valray Estell, who at that time of the shooting was his live-in uncle.

Authorities had alleged that Salary shot 58-year-old Estell and left him to die in a burning house.

Salary had insisted the shooting was self-defense.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that the Kansas Supreme Court rejected Salary’s request for a new trial.

RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — If you’re among the several million people hit with new federal fines for going without health insurance, then starting Sunday you’ll get a second chance to sign up for 2015 coverage through HealthCare.gov.

That might ease the sting of rising penalties for people still uninsured this year.

Fines payable to the IRS are the stick behind the coverage offer in the health law.

Virtually every in the U.S. is now required to get covered through an employer, a government program, or by buying individual policies.

This is the first year fines are being collected. H&R Block says the penalty averages about $170 among its affected customers.

If you’re hit with the penalty, you’ll have until April 30 to sign up for coverage and avoid bigger fines next year.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Kansas health officials say a foodborne illness linked to some Blue Bell ice cream products may have been a contributing factor in the deaths of three hospital patients.

But Kansas Department of Health and Environment spokeswoman Sara Belfry said Saturday that listeriosis didn’t cause the deaths.

Belfry said the only detail she could provide about the patients at Via Christi St. Francis hospital in Wichita, Kansas, is that they were adults.

Hospital spokeswoman Maria Loving said she couldn’t discuss why the patients were hospitalized, citing patient confidentiality laws.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says five people developed listeriosis in Kansas after eating products from one production line at the Blue Bell creamery in Brenham, Texas.