Reroute Toll Road to Save Rare Bird, U.S. Says : Transportation: The project in southern Orange and northern San Diego counties must be changed or abandoned, the Fish and Wildlife Service orders.

Federal officials have warned road builders to abandon or overhaul a proposal for a toll road because it poses an extreme threat to a federally protected rare bird and other wildlife in southern Orange County and northern San Diego County.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has the authority to block any project that threatens an endangered species. In this case, the preferred route for the southern leg of the Foothill Transportation Corridor in Orange County cuts through habitat of the least Bell’s vireos, an endangered songbird that inhabits an area of the Camp Pendleton Marine Base.

“The birds were nesting right smack dab in the middle of the (proposed toll road) alignment last summer,” said Loren Hays, a biologist with the Fish and Wildlife Service’s regional office in Laguna Niguel.

Vireos, which migrate from Baja California in March to breed during spring and summer, were once found throughout the West Coast. Today, only about 400 pair remain in the United States because more than 90% of their habitat has been destroyed.

Officials with the Transportation Corridor Agencies, which is planning the Foothill highway and two other toll roads in Orange County, said they believe they can resolve the federal agency’s concerns without abandoning their proposed routes.

“There are often endangered species involved in development projects, and you have to enter an agreement on how you will mitigate the impact,” said Steve Letterly, manager of environmental impact for the Transportation Corridor Agencies. “But that does not mean they will block the project.”

The toll road agency has two proposed routes for the southern section of the eight-lane, $746-million highway, which would stretch 15 miles from Oso Parkway to Interstate 5. One cuts through San Clemente, and one, identified in the environmental report as the preferred route, cuts through wilderness areas of southeastern Orange County and the Marine base.

Fish and Wildlife Service officials said in an October report to toll road planners that neither route is acceptable because the impacts on wildlife are “significant and substantial . . . and have not been and cannot be sufficiently mitigated.”

Besides the vireos, they said a large number of animals and plants would be harmed by the tollway, including the California gnatcatcher, a rapidly vanishing bird that is expected to be added soon to the endangered species list.

Because the proposed tollway will damage an endangered species, Transportation Corridor Agencies must obtain special permits from the Fish and Wildlife Service. To obtain the permits, transportation officials will have to persuade federal biologists that adequate measures will be taken to mitigate damage to the endangered birds.

Hays said several actions probably will be necessary, including rerouting the road, creating new habitat nearby and protecting the birds from noise, predators and human intrusion.

“It doesn’t necessarily put up a stone wall that stops the project,” Hays said. “But we must ensure the species is not taken (harmed) or that appropriate mitigation occurs.”

Slight changes in the Foothill road’s route might not be enough because freeway noise could still threaten the vireos, he said.

Studies have shown that noise levels over 60 decibels have harmed vireos by causing stress and reducing their ability to communicate with mates and their young. Unless road planners find a way to reduce noise, the toll road could violate federal wildlife law, Hays said.

Even if the vireos are protected, the routes would have to avoid other species.

“It’s possible, by adjusting the alignment, that particular problem (the vireos) may be resolved. But there are other problems--one being the possible future listing (as an endangered species) of the gnatcatcher,” Hays said.

Federal officials criticized toll road planner’s environmental report as inadequate and misleading, saying that it contained major errors and misrepresentations about wildlife in the area.

One of the biggest failings, they said, was that it did not report any endangered species in the project’s path even though vireos have been documented there “during most if not all of the years between 1980 and the present.”

The report also failed to adequately address the impact on gnatcatchers and it did not conduct field surveys for at least three other endangered species--the peregrine falcon, kangaroo rat and a species of pocket mouse, according to the agency’s biologists.

“Our surveys have shown there aren’t any (endangered species) in the area. Since they disagree with that, we are doing additional surveys in preparation for the April hearing to address their concerns,” Letterly said.

The toll road planners said they are conducting more surveys to include in the environmental impact report, which comes before the public for a hearing and final vote by the Transportation Corridor Agencies on April 11. After that, the agency must put together a separate environmental statement required by federal law that will take at least a year.

Tollway officials hope to break ground on the project in 1996.

Wildlife biologists say the Foothill toll road also endangers ecosystems that have nearly vanished from Southern California.

With its expanse of creeks, woodlands and brush-lined canyons, the land involved, between Mission Viejo and Camp Pendleton, is one of the last remaining wilderness areas in Orange County and northern San Diego County.

State Fish and Game Department and local biologists have joined the federal agency in warning that the toll road would have a disastrous effect on deer, mountain lions, hawks, coyotes and other animals by causing large losses of coastal sage scrub and other terrain that supports them.

ENDANGERED BIRD IN PATH OF FOOTHILL TOLL ROAD

Least Bell’s vireo (Vireo bellii pusillus)

Status: Federal and state endangered species

This elusive 5-inch gray bird depends on rapidly declining riparian habitat-- the moist willow thickets and other vegetation found along creeks and streams. It also is a victim of brood parasitism by cowbirds that lay their eggs in the vireo nest. About 400 breeding pairs remain in the U.S., all in Southern California. Half of them are along the Santa Margarita River in San Diego County. Others have been seen nesting at Camp Pendleton and the Prado Basin near the Orange-Riverside County border. The bird is so endangered because about 90% of riparian habitat has been drained or developed in Southern California. The birds migrate to this area in mid-March and stay through mid-September, when they head south to Baja California.