With the discovery of a tiny fish in a soon-to-be-flooded stretch of the Little Tennessee River, construction on a dam that had already cost taxpayers $100 million came crashing to a halt. Thanks to the Endangered Species Act of 1973, the snail darter was instantly transformed into both an icon for species preservation and a despised symbol of the environmental movement's alleged excesses. The intense legal battle that ensued over its fate was contested all the way to the Supreme Court. The 1978 decision in TVA v. Hill, the Court's first decision interpreting the Endangered Species...
With the discovery of a tiny fish in a soon-to-be-flooded stretch of the Little Tennessee River, construction on a dam that had already cost taxpayers...