Rare Plants, Wildlife Thrive at Base : Ecology: Miramar Naval Air Station is cited by the Navy for its outstanding conservation program.

The Navy brags about its Top Gun school at Miramar Naval Air Station, but Mike Scott will tell you that the mesa mint and Palmer’s grappling hook don’t take a back seat to any of the hotshot fighter jockeys who train there.

While Miramar is known worldwide for its fighter pilot school, Scott and three assistants, two civilian and one in the Navy, are working to preserve a lesser known feature of the sprawling air base.

To hear Scott describe it, “Miramar is really an island of ecological rarity” surrounding a concrete taxiway and lying under the constant roar of jet engines.

Scott, natural resources manager at Miramar, is responsible for preserving several species of endangered plants, wildlife and unique vernal pools found at the base. San Diego State University ecologist Ellen Bauder called Miramar one of the most important ecological resources in the county.

The preservation efforts of Scott and his small staff, wildlife biologist Tommy Wright, botanist Coralie Hull and Navy Lt. Paz Gomez, a civil engineer, were recently recognized by the Navy. Miramar was chosen by the secretary of the Navy as the Navy base with the best conservation program in 1991.

Scott, who began the conservation program four years ago and was the only full-time employee until 1990, and his staff will be honored July 1 for their efforts. Meanwhile, Miramar will square off against two Army and Air Force bases to compete for bragging rights to the U.S. military’s best environmental program in 1991.

Next week, Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney will decide which service branch has the best environmental record.

Some critics said the Navy’s newly found environmental awareness at Miramar is hypocritical or, at best, self-serving. They point out that, two years ago, the Navy and the General Services Administration were trying to sell 49 acres they now call an ecological treasure to a developer who wanted to build an industrial complex.

Scott, a civilian and dedicated conservationist, has another explanation for the Navy’s preservation efforts at Miramar.

“We’re simply following a congressional mandate to be good stewards of the land,” he said.

Perhaps the most significant ecological feature at Miramar are the hundreds of fragile vernal pools that have managed to survive despite more than 80 years of military activity. The Navy acquired Miramar nearly 50 years after the base had been used by the War Department, predecessor of the Department of Defense. Since World War I, soldiers and Marines also used the property for infantry, artillery and armored training.

Bauder, a biologist, has done research at Miramar since 1982 and is an expert in vernal pools. Of the about 2,700 vernal pools now known to exist in San Diego County, about 1,900 are located within Miramar’s 24,000 acres, she said.

Vernal pools are shallow depressions in the ground that hold water in the winter, providing a home for certain plant and animal life, including the endangered mesa mint. The pools, which are found only on mesa tops, dry up in the summer and are overgrown with rare species of plants, most of which grow only in San Diego County.

Scott, working with what Navy officials agree is a meager budget, has nevertheless managed to put together an environmental preservation program at the base that has won plaudits from local ecologists and universities.

“The people on the staff take their jobs very seriously. They are doing a very good job of protecting these rare and fragile resources,” said Bauder.

Scott has opened up more of the base for research by ecologists and university students. In addition, he also persuaded Navy officials to set aside a 2,000-acre natural resource area east of Interstate 15 for the benefit of biologists and botanists at the University of San Diego, UC San Diego and San Diego State University.

“I couldn’t have done it without the Navy’s support. The base commander (Capt. Curtiss W. Schantz) has been very supportive of our environmental role here at the base,” Scott said. “We’re proof that you can balance both the military mission and conservation at a Navy base.”

Besides the mesa mint and Palmer’s grappling hook, endangered plants found at the base include the San Diego barrel cactus, Cleveland’s golden star and mesa club moss, which are found only in southwestern San Diego County and northern Baja California.

Endangered wildlife that depends heavily on the vernal pools for survival include fairy shrimp, spade foot toad, Pacific tree frog and the gnatcatcher.

An unknown number of coyotes, bobcats and about 200 southern mule deer call Miramar home, Scott said. Runoff from a Scripps Ranch park that borders the base’s northeast boundary has helped maintain an 873-acre riparian habitat that is used by the deer for shelter and foraging.

The Navy has also placed water containers throughout the base for the benefit of the deer population, which has suffered during the state’s five-year drought.

Recently, Scott and his staff embarked on a four-year program to map the exact location of all the vernal pools at Miramar. To accomplish this, he convinced Navy and Marine officials to allow him to use the military’s global positioning system.

The system uses satellites to determine an exact position on the ground and was used successfully during the Persian Gulf War to locate positions in the featureless desert. By using satellite technology, Scott said, the vernal pools will be plotted to within inches of their exact location.

Miramar spokesman Doug Sayers said the pool mapping is necessary in case a catastrophe like an earthquake or fire wipes out traces of some pools. Cultural resources on the base, such as American Indian grave sites and historical homesteads, will also be plotted with the global positioning system.

Despite the Navy’s interest in preserving Miramar’s endangered species, some of the people who applaud the preservation effort also say that it is self-serving.

Sayers is quick to point out that most of the rare species would be wiped out if the military abandoned the base and opened it up to developers. Sayers also noted that some politicians have had their eye on Miramar as a site for a larger airport to replace Lindbergh Field.

The Navy has consistently resisted efforts to abandon Miramar.

Bauder said the Navy “is speaking out of both sides of their mouths” when they talk about protecting the fragile environment at Miramar. She was one of three biologists, a zoologist and four environmental groups who sued the Navy and Cheney in 1990 to block the proposed sale of 49 acres to a private developer.

The Navy wanted to sell the land and use the millions in proceeds to build additional military housing.

Opponents used an October, 1990, memorandum from Cheney to the U.S. military to show that the proposed sale went against the Department of Defense’s own environmental policy.

“We must demonstrate commitment with accountability for responding to the nation’s environmental agenda. I want every command to be an environmental standard by which federal agencies are judged. . . . It is also extremely important that we communicate clearly what we are doing to address our environmental concerns,” Cheney’s memo said.

The Navy eventually dropped its proposal to sell the land.

San Diego attorney Michael Aguirre, who represented the plaintiffs, said opponents of the sale succeeded in blocking it by pointing out the Navy’s inconsistent environmental policy.

“The bottom line was that they talked about the vernal pools at Miramar that are truly unique to our habitat, but they were also trying to do something that was environmentally inconsistent with the role they were aspiring to,” Aguirre said.