County Study Says Ecological Damage Severe : Environment: A consultant calls for drastic changes in development policies. Fish, oak forests and a rare plant near Azusa are at risk, the Regional Planning Commission is told.

An environmental consultant hired by Los Angeles County to review sensitive ecological areas found that many of them have been significantly damaged since they were last studied in 1976, according to a report released earlier this month to the county Regional Planning Commission.

In fact, the consultant, Michael Brandman Associates, said that without drastic changes in county development policies and restriction of access to the areas for both humans and grazing animals, the very ecological traits that led county planners to select the areas for protection--ranging from rare fish to oak forests--will be lost.

Among the recommendations included in the report are added restrictions on development around the county-designated Significant Ecological Areas to prevent pollution of water runoff into the areas, buffer zones of native plants on the areas’ perimeters and expansion of some of the areas to improve the potential for wildlife survival.

The report encompassed seven areas, including one in the San Gabriel Valley, near Azusa. The others are in Chino Hills north of Brea, three near the San Fernando Valley and two near Malibu.

The report is the first phase of a planned review of all 61 SEAs requested by supervisors in the wake of repeated complaints from environmentalists.

Most of the SEAs are under private ownership and were never intended to be kept completely development-free. The consultant, however, suggested that the county should strive to preserve many of them by persuading builders to dedicate permanent open space in return for permission to construct more houses. Under the plan, twice as much open space would have to be dedicated as the area to be developed.

Such density trades have been negotiated by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy in large land-development deals, including a controversial project proposed by the Baldwin Co. near Calabasas, which called for building 550 houses and removing 1,800 oak trees, many of them in a Significant Ecological Area. That project ultimately received county approval, but only after 640 acres were promised to the conservancy in return for permission to cluster houses on the remaining land.

Environmentalists say the report confirms their worst fears, yet gives them hope that the areas still could be saved from decline. Jill Swift, parks chairwoman for the Angeles Chapter of the Sierra Club, said the most important SEAs should be purchased and protected through inclusion in a park bond act proposed for the November ballot.

“Once those are gone, that’s it,” Swift said. “We’ve got to draw the line right now.”

Joseph T. Edmiston, executive director of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, said the consultant’s proposal for trading open space in the SEAs for density elsewhere is “an innovative idea, especially if the county were to fairly administrate that . . . if everybody were included.”

One SEA studied is a steep, north-facing slope of the San Gabriel Mountains near Azusa and the Angeles National Forest boundary. That was chosen because it contained one of the few remaining populations of a plant called San Gabriel Mountains dudleya, a member of the Stonecrop family of plants that grow on rocky slopes.

The small flowering plant is thought to exist in only three canyons--San Gabriel, Fish and Roberts. The populations outside of the National Forest in Fish and Roberts canyons have been destroyed through mining operations, the report found. It is a candidate for federal endangered status and is considered a sensitive species by the U.S. Forest Service.

Most of the original SEA remains under private ownership, although a portion has since become part of the Angeles National Forest. Because of the extreme steepness of San Gabriel Canyon, the dudleya plants have largely escaped harm from either recreation use or development, the consultant found.

But maintenance on power lines or a road that crosses the SEA could be damaging, the report said, leading to a recommendation that a biologist familiar with the plant species always be consulted before work is done there.

Grading for construction along Glendora Ridge Road could lead to erosion of the hillside, the consultant warned, and proposals for development there should lead to extensive review by the county’s SEA advisory committee.

The report recommends, among other things, limiting human access to the SEA to that needed for scientific studies, expanding the area to include a strip of land southeast of the SEA, near the national forest, and consideration of acquisition of the dudleya areas by the U.S. Forest Service for permanent protection.