City Officials Accused of Failing to Save Imperiled Vernal Pools

State and federal environmental officials say a City of San Diego program to save environmentally sensitive vernal pools is a failure because most of the pools have been destroyed by development while $500,000 in city preservation funds remains unspent.

As a result, two governmental agencies and a private environmental watchdog group have formally requested that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers assume responsibility for the preservation of the city’s vernal pools, which serve as home for several endangered plants.

The city’s vernal pool preservation program, which was instituted in 1980, has allowed the destruction of nearly 80% of the pools under its jurisdiction, according to a report released in September of 1986. The report said that 719 of the 911 vernal pools under the city’s guard have been destroyed for development.

“We’ve repeatedly warned the city that its current plan wasn’t working and told them without proper adjustments there wouldn’t be any pools left,” said Susan Cochrane, coordinator of the endangered plant project for the California Department of Fish and Game.

“But until now we haven’t had a proper study to back our concern, so the city’s environmental quality department hadn’t exactly jumped at any of our advice,” she said.

Preservation Costly

City officials counter, however, that they need to accumulate a large sum of money in the preservation program to buy an appropriate--and expensive--preservation site. They say they are currently negotiating to buy a piece of property.

The vernal pool report, written by Ellen Bauder, surveys the state of local vernal pools and examines the city’s preservation program between 1979 and mid-1986. The report was written by Bauder as a doctoral dissertation at San Diego State University, at the urging of state fish and game officials.

Basing their criticism on the report, Cochrane and other environmentalists told city officials at a meeting in early July that the preservation program had failed to shield vernal pools from developers’ bulldozers and called for changes to protect the unique habitats.

“The purpose of the meeting was to make sure all parties involved were working with the same data and possible solutions were discussed,” said Nancy Kaufman, Southern California field supervisor for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

“For seven years the city has had the chance to preserve the natural resources of San Diego and instead, they chose to do nothing,” Kaufman said.

“They had ample opportunity to push for the cause of vernal pools, but what have they done?” she said.

Tom Huffman, a senior planner with the city’s Environmental Quality Division, said the information provided in Bauder’s report “overall appears to be accurate” and conceded that loss of vernal pools in some areas have been “substantial.”

But Huffman added that it was too early to say how the city would respond to the allegations.

“The preservation of vernal pools is a complicated subject,” Deputy City Manager Coleman Conrad said. “I’m not a biologist and I can’t say how effective the program has been. But if the agencies feel revisions need to be made, we will form a study group with them and work cooperatively.”

Ordinance Said Helpful

Meanwhile, Conrad said, the proposed Interim Development Ordinance, with its provision to protect environmentally sensitive lands, should help in the preservation effort. How the controversial measure will affect the vernal pools may be decided in a special council session on Friday.

“My understanding of the ordinance is that any environmentally sensitive area, including wetlands like vernal pools that may be disturbed, will require a hearing before the City Council,” Conrad said. “If nothing else, it will make for a pointed issue every time a vernal pool is threatened.”

Vernal pools are shallow depressions in the ground that fill with water each winter and spring, and provide a habitat for certain plant and animal life.

The pools are located largely in the Mira Mesa--Penasquitos Canyon area, Otay Mesa and Montgomery Field. They support several endangered plants, many of which can be found only in San Diego. These plants include the mesa mint, Orcutt grass and the coyote thistle.

The existing preservation program--which evolved in 1980 after a year of heated debates among politicians, developers and environmentalists--calls for both the city and Army Engineers to monitor the city’s pools, said Bruce Manheim, a scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund, a Washington, D.C.-based environmental group.

1,500 Pools in City

The preservation program divided the city’s 1,500 vernal pools into two groups.

The responsibility for protecting the group deemed more “sensitive”--consisting of 538 pools--was relegated to the Army.

Before a pool in this category can be destroyed, developers must first receive a special permit from the Corps of Engineers after an extensive, on-site inspection of the vernal pool habitat. Environmentalists have supported such a rigorous review because it often results in salvaging the pools, said Manheim.

The remaining, less sensitive, 911 pools fall under the city’s control, Manheim said.

These pools, although reviewed by the California Environmental Quality Act, are not protected by the more stringent federal process. Developers planning to build on these pools need only pay a fee--ranging from $500 to $4,000--which is deposited in a special vernal pool fund before any construction begins.

The fund is supposed to be used to purchase existing vernal pools at other sites and set them apart as a natural reserve, Manheim said.

But environmentalists claim the fund is nothing more than a “money-collecting mechanism.”

“The city kept promising that it would use the fund to buy more pools. But they never did,” Cochrane said.

The fund has accumulated more than $500,000, “but not a penny of it has been used to purchase another pool,” Kaufman said. “In essence, what we have is a lot of money in the bank but no pools,” she said.

Because of the city’s track record, officials from the state Dept. of Fish and Game, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) are urging the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to take over protection of the remaining vernal pools under city jurisdiction.

The groups have submitted a formal request that the Army--rather than the city--determine whether a pool should be destroyed for development projects, Kaufman said.

“Having the Corps inspect the remaining pools is a step in the right direction,” she said. “But you have to remember that all that does is ensure a stricter federal review process. It doesn’t guarantee preservation. The Corps could still allow developers to destroy the pools.”

Cochrane said the state environmental agency wants the establishment of a natural reserve--where pools would be fully protected from developers. In addition, the department wants immediate compensation from the city fund for any remaining vernal pools that may be destroyed in the future.

Huffman denied that the city was sitting on its hands.

“The money has not been spent because we have been waiting to buy a decent piece of property that would make an appropriate (vernal pool) reserve,” Huffman said.

A site on Lopez Ridge--located between the Penasquitos and Lopez canyons--was selected in March, 1986, for such a reserve, Huffman said. He said the site had been approved by the state fish and game officials, the federal Fish and Wildlife Service, and the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers. The fund was allowed to grow untouched so enough money could be raised to purchase the land, which has been appraised at $440,000, he said.

Huffman confirmed that the fund amounts to about $500,000, adding that negotiations to purchase the property are under way.

The Corps of Engineers acknowledged being asked to take over preservation of the pools but a spokesman was cautious about taking a greater role in the preservation effort.

“In light of the requests, we’ll look over the situation and see if the city’s plan needs to be modified,” said Chuck Holt, regulatory branch chief for the Corps.

“We are investigating the allegation that more than 70% of the pools have been destroyed. After that, we’ll talk with the city and try to determine a coordinated effort. Only then will we determine whether we should exercise our discretionary authority (to protect the pools),” he said.

City officials and environmentalists both say they are hopeful that a solution will soon be found, admitting they are very much aware of the turmoil created by the preservation issue in the past.

Abundance of Pools in ’79

In 1979, when discussion of a preservation program first started, vernal pools were scattered abundantly across sites prime for development.

In those early discussions, the Corps spokesman noted that the city had no draft proposal for preservation, to which then-Councilman Larry Stirling responded: “I think we ought to tell the Corps of Engineers to stuff it.”

The City Council countered by threatening to enact legislation allowing destruction of some pools in the path of planned development.

But Conrad insists that in the end, the city’ preservation program was “mutually accepted by all parties involved.” And he said it was wrong to fault the program “for not being a comprehensive protection plan.

“I don’t think it was the program’s intent to retain every single pool,” Conrad said. “Those involved tried to determine a number of pools that had to be preserved at all costs, and also set a number for pools that could be developed.

“The vernal pool issue is a difficult issue to resolve. I don’t know how well the program is working now, but at least when it was created it was done in good faith,” he said.

Environmentalists say, however, that the good faith has gone bad. And they add that unless a remedy is found, a valuable portion of California’s natural heritage will be lost forever.

“I don’t care what kind of preservation criteria they (the city) established back then. Those are now irrelevant. It’s obvious it hasn’t protected anything,” Kaufman said.

“I anticipate they will be willing to cooperate,” she said.