EPA: Agency Against Permit for Pamo Dam : EPA Objects to Permit for Construction of Pamo Dam

Federal environmental officials are objecting strongly to the proposed issuance of a permit for Pamo Dam, claiming that the San Diego region can meet its emergency water needs through construction of an alternate project that inflicts far less damage on the environment.

In a lengthy report to be sent to the Army Corps of Engineers this week, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials enumerate myriad concerns about the controversial dam near Ramona, and argue that the $86-million project should not be allowed to go forward.

“It is quite clear to us that under the circumstances, this permit should not be issued,” said Thomas G. Yocom, chief of the EPA’s wetlands protection program in San Francisco. “We have determined that there are alternatives that are both practicable and less environmentally destructive, and we do not believe the corps has adequately addressed them.”

A second federal agency, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also has protested the Corps of Engineers’ plan to issue the dam permit to the San Diego County Water Authority.

Impact on Wildlife

Nancy Kaufman, the agency’s regional field officer in Laguna Niguel, said she is concerned because a mitigation plan, designed to offset the vast impact the project will have on wildlife and habitat in the pristine Pamo Valley, has not yet been approved.

“It appears they intend to allow construction to go forward before the mitigation plan is completed,” said Kaufman, whose agency earlier recommended that the permit be denied. “That is very unusual. It means we have no idea what sort of mitigation will be done, and no control over it whatsoever.”

Kaufman also complained that her agency had been inexplicably removed from the list of agencies that will monitor the dam’s impacts on the endangered least Bell’s vireo--a small, gray songbird that nests at the site.

“I haven’t the foggiest notion how they could cut us out of the monitoring process, since we are the agency assigned to assess impacts on the species in jeopardy,” she said.

Kaufman said the wildlife agency’s regional director has requested a meeting with the Corps of Engineers’ division engineer, a move that launches a formal negotiation process. EPA officials, who have final veto authority over the permit, said they will initiate a similar discussion with the corps if their protests go unheeded.

Environmentalists, who say the dam would cause the irreversible destruction of 1,800 acres of lush habitat, greeted the two agencies’ actions with enthusiasm Monday.

“This is very, very good news,” said Emily Durbin, chairwoman of the Sierra Club’s Pamo Dam Task Force. “It’s obvious that this is a growth-inducing project that is incredibly damaging to an area rich with resources. San Diego can make do with other alternatives.”

The chairwoman of the Water Authority’s board, meanwhile, dismissed the concerns raised by the EPA as “old issues” that are unimportant “given how desperate we are in San Diego for an emergency water supply.”

Francesca M. Krauel, the chairwoman, also rejected the EPA’s argument that a practical alternative to Pamo Dam exists, saying that other proposals suggested by the environmental agency would not adequately serve communities in the county’s northern reaches.

“Pamo Dam is very critical to our region, and I just hope these people who are fighting it will be up there in North County with their buckets to help out when we’re hit with an earthquake or other emergency,” Krauel said.

The project would consist of a 264-foot-high concrete dam across Santa Ysabel Creek and would flood 1,800 acres in Pamo Valley, an isolated area noted for its rare stream-side habitat and huge diversity of wildlife species.

Reserved for Emergencies

The reservoir, containing roughly 130,000 acre-feet of water, would be reserved for use in drought years or in the event that an earthquake severed the aqueducts that bring water into San Diego County, water officials say.

Attached to the dam would be an $11-million water reclamation project to replenish depleted supplies and improve ground water quality in the nearby San Pasqual Valley. A hydroelectric plant also has been proposed.

Environmentalists have bitterly fought the proposal, worrying that the authority’s plan to compensate for the loss of habitat by creating new habitat in San Pasqual Valley might fail. They also believe that the project’s goal of creating an emergency water supply can be achieved in a much less environmentally catastrophic manner--by raising San Vicente Dam to increase its storage capacity.

The EPA agrees. Under the Clean Water Act, a permit cannot be issued if there is a practicable and less environmentally damaging way to achieve a project’s purpose, Yocom said. In this case, he said, the Water Authority could meet its needs either by raising San Vicente or by tapping ground water basins in the event of an emergency.

“It’s difficult to argue with a noble goal like providing an emergency water supply for people,” Yocom said. “But there are clearly alternatives, and some of them would save dollars as well as saving the incredible range of species and the habitat in Pamo Valley.”

Krauel, however, said raising San Vicente Dam, which is in East County between Lakeside and Ramona, “would not solve our problem. It does not serve the same area as Pamo does. We may need to raise San Vicente at some future point, but we need Pamo too.”

As for ground water basins, Krauel said San Diego’s below-ground supplies are limited and of poor quality: “We are a semi-arid region, and we don’t have ground water basins of sufficient size to provide any real storage. The ones we do have are degraded, and we don’t have any sort of pumping system to get the water out.”

Yocom disagreed, saying that ground water could provide a reliable alternative and could be tapped by pumps at a cost of $44 million. He conceded that, according to estimates by the Water Authority, raising San Vicente would cost $70 million more than constructing Pamo Dam, resulting in a rate increase of $7.50 annually per family.

But Yocom, along with the Sierra Club and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, suspects that the authority has vastly underestimated the cost of its mitigation program.

“Mitigation is a new science, and the kind of systems that will be required here are going to be very tricky and very costly,” he said. “In the end, I doubt that the cost difference would be much of anything.”

The Corps of Engineers, which oversees development along the nation’s wetlands and waterways, announced its decision to provide a permit for the water project last month. Although conceding that the dam would take a toll on the environment, the Corps of Engineers concluded that such losses would be outweighed by the benefits, including increased storage capacity for drought years and the recreational opportunities the reservoir would create.

Financing Legislation

Carol Wolff, a corps spokeswoman, said she could not comment on the EPA’s concerns until she had received them in writing.

Meanwhile, financing for Pamo Dam could be affected by legislation that the state Senate’s Local Government Committee is scheduled to consider Wednesday.

The bill, by Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach) and opposed by the Sierra Club, would give the Water Authority the power to substitute a series of short-term loans for the $82 million in 30-year revenue bonds voters approved in 1984.

Ben Clay, a lobbyist for the water authority, said the authority has been using the technique since 1985, when a bill by Assemblyman Steve Peace (D-Chula Vista) granted permission to do so. But changes in the federal tax law will force the Water Authority to repay those short-term loans now, an action that will mean, technically, repayment of the debt authorized by the voters.

Clay said Bergeson’s bill would allow the authority to incur that debt a second time, but at no more than the amount voters have already approved.

Times staff writer Daniel M. Weintraub contributed to this story.