Chula Vista Sings Blues for Tiny Bird’s Big Impact on City

The endangered least tern and other vanishing flora and fauna have brought a $103-million South Bay freeway project to a screeching halt, put a $500-million bayfront development project in mothballs, dammed a federal flood control channel and blocked Chula Vista’s hopes for a touch of class on its bayfront.

A permanent injunction was imposed Monday by Gordon Thompson Jr., chief judge of the U.S. District Court, shutting down all work on the six-mile Sweetwater River flood channel, between Chula Vista and National City, and on the California 54 freeway project flanking it, which links Interstates 5 and 805.

Bob Meyer, chief legal counsel for the state Department of Transportation, said that construction company claims against the state for court-imposed delays “already add up to a million dollars” and will go much higher now that the entire freeway project must be shut down. Prior orders have allowed work to continue in the areas east of I-5. The highway will not extend west of I-5.

Crews Left Site

Caltrans supervisors and construction crews, notified Tuesday of the shutdown, finished up minor work and left their equipment parked at the site. According to Meyer, there is no guarantee that the freeway will ever be completed, although the route does not reach the sensitive bayfront marshland west of I-5, where the least tern and light-footed clapper rail roam.

“We’re very frustrated,” the Caltrans attorney said. “We’re shut down because of a fight between federal agencies and the City of Chula Vista.”

“Environmental blackmail” is Chula Vista Mayor Greg Cox’s assessment of the situation, which he blames on environmental groups that took the issue to court and on recalcitrant federal officials who have refused to try to work out a compromise among the competing interests.

In the complex legal and political snarl over environmental issues, the U.S. Corps of Engineers was ordered to acquire a nesting area nearby as mitigation for marshland disruption that its flood channel would cause. Santa Fe Development Co., a major property holder in the area, offered 188 acres to the federal agency for $1, but with conditions attached that caused the League for Coastal Protection and the Sierra Club to sue to halt the land transfer.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials agreed with the environmental groups that a wildlife sanctuary should not be cluttered with road easements and other development conditions. The agency refused to accept the property as a federal nature refuge because of all the strings attached, including road access and development rights for surrounding upland property.

‘Cut Their Losses’

“They’ve gotten tired of pumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into this project, and, with these lawsuits, having no chance to move ahead with it. They are trying to cut their losses,” said attorney Donald Worley, speaking for Santa Fe Development Co. and Watt Industries, the developer for the 500-acre bayfront plan.

Worley proposed, on behalf of his clients, a compromise designed to unravel the legal snarl:

Let one of the federal agencies acquire the wildlife sanctuary for $1, with only one string attached--federal condemnation and acquisition of Gunpowder Point, which is owned by Santa Fe Development Co., at fair market value. Gunpowder Point is the best of the bayfront property, the proposed site for a major resort hotel and marina, and the present site of a $3-million Nature Center.

Worley said that the waterfront tract of about 14 acres would probably bring $6 million, maybe $6.5 million, “and I don’t know any governmental agency that has that kind of money lying around.” However, “considering the bind we are all in,” perhaps the city, county, state and federal officials “could each put up a part of the cost” to dissolve the present stalemate, he said.

San Francisco attorney Larry Silver, representing Sierra Club and Coastal Protection League interests, said that the groups “would look favorably” on any kind of agreement that preserves the 188-acre marshland tract free from development or other disturbance. “We don’t care how those lands are gotten,” he said, and probably would drop the legal challenges if the land was transferred to federal control.

Working Out Compromise

Silver said he was not willing to take the word of governmental lawyers that discussions would start immediately to work out a compromise, so he refused to agree to a delay in imposing the federal injunction during Monday’s court hearing.

“There have been numerous meetings among the parties up to now with no results,” Silver said. “And the city (of Chula Vista) is doing everything it can to torpedo an agreement.”

Mayor Cox conceded that it is a bitter pill to swallow--the loss of a major tourist resort on Gunpowder Point, the city’s best water frontage. But, he explained, it might be the price to pay to allow development of the remainder of the now-barren mudflats and weed patches with commercial, industrial and residential projects.

Cox admits he is disappointed that the Corps of Engineers did not agree earlier to negotiate and that the environmental groups were not willing to allow additional time for talks. These two concessions would have avoided the shutdown of the freeway/flood control project and prevented a “major traffic danger” from continuing until the legal issues are resolved.

The I-5 site of the freeway construction was labeled “the most dangerous freeway stretch in the state” by Caltrans even before the construction narrowed the lanes and rerouted traffic, Cox said. Thirteen motorists died in the two-mile stretch between 24th Street in National City and E Street in Chula Vista during the 1978-83 period, he said.

“Now we must live with this danger for weeks, months, maybe years, just because someone or other can’t give a little,” he said.