6.4 Million Acres to Be Designated Tortoise Habitat

The federal government announced Monday that it will designate 6.4 million acres of desert, most of it in California, as critical habitat for the threatened desert tortoise, a move that could limit activities ranging from cattle grazing and mining to construction of the Ward Valley low-level nuclear waste dump.

An area almost as large as the habitat prescribed in the Pacific Northwest for the Northern spotted owl--which was the biggest such designation ever--the land earmarked for the tortoise takes in parts of four states and encompasses a host of activities, including off-road-vehicle recreation, military maneuvers and, increasingly, rural real estate development.

The proposed Ward Valley site is in one of 12 non-contiguous zones, ranging in size from about 42,600 acres to just over 1 million, that make up the 6.4 million acres. The critical-habitat designation will go into effect in 30 days.

The California Department of Health Services, which supports construction of the Ward Valley dump, had opposed its inclusion within the critical habitat. In addition, members of the California Cattlemen’s Assn. and other groups representing miners, off-road-vehicle users and real estate developers, expressed objections to its boundaries, which take in parts of Arizona, Utah and Nevada.

But opponents of the Ward Valley site, who sued to force the government to establish the critical habitat for the tortoise, declared the designation a major victory.

“The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decided that protecting Ward Valley was more important than constructing a nuclear dump in an area considered essential to the survival of the threatened tortoise,” said Ward A. Young of the Bay Area Nuclear Coalition, a federation of environmental groups and Native American tribes.

Opponents believe that language of the federal critical habitat rule--which prohibits destruction or adverse modification of the tortoise habitat--outlaws construction of the dump.

“Our confidence stems from the language . . . which makes it crystal clear you can’t go in and tear up 80 to 90 acres of prime habitat, let alone exposing the animals to radioactive contamination,” said Philip M. Klasky, the coalition’s coordinator.

Government spokesmen, however, pointed out that while the habitat ruling sets a new standard of protection for the tortoise, focusing on preservation of its burrows and its food sources, it does not automatically ban various activities, such as construction of the nuclear waste dump.

“Critical habitat doesn’t prohibit anything,” said David Klinger, a press liaison officer with the Fish and Wildlife Service. “It could have the effect of limiting a certain project. . . . Since 1979 there have been 118,000 consultations regarding proposed activities within areas designated as critical habitat. Only 33 projects were halted.”

The Ward Valley site, about 20 miles from the Colorado River in the eastern Mojave Desert, would take low-level radioactive waste from nuclear power plants, hospitals, biotechnology companies and other commercial users of radioactive material. Although California already has issued a license to US Ecology Inc. to operate the dump, it cannot be constructed until the federal government, which owns the site, transfers it to the state.

Last November, under heavy pressure from political opponents of the Ward Valley site, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt postponed the transfer until California courts could rule on a lawsuit contending that the state had failed to hold a hearing on health and safety matters before issuing the license.

On Monday, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled that the state was not obliged to hold the hearing. Babbitt, who still plans to hold his own hearing, could not be reached for a comment.

The critical-habitat rule is an outgrowth of the Endangered Species Act of 1973. Since then, there have been habitat designations for 109 species, 85% of them animals.

The desert tortoise was placed under the act’s protection as a threatened species in 1990 after a study by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management found its population had declined by as much as 50% during the previous six years. One government biologist estimated that the population had declined in some areas from 1,000 per square mile in the 1920s to as few as 20 per square mile.

Government scientists blame the soaring mortality rate on a variety of factors, including a mysterious upper respiratory tract infection, raven attacks on young tortoises and people shooting them or driving over them.

Many deaths also are attributed to habitat loss as a result of growing real estate development in desert communities. Mining, cattle ranching and the recreational use of off-road vehicles also are blamed for some habitat destruction.

The decline of the species potentially affects other animals as well, since the tortoise provides food for the desert kit fox, coyote, bobcat and golden eagle. The tortoise’s burrows become shelter for snakes, lizards and small rodents and are nesting sites for the burrowing owl.

The tortoise, which is the California state reptile, can grow to a length of about 12 inches and live up to 50 years.

While the critical-habitat designation places a heightened emphasis on protecting the tortoise’s burrows and the vegetation it eats, critics of the government’s action say that as soon as the tortoise was declared a threatened species, severe economic hardships resulted.

“Once they listed the tortoise (as threatened), they told us we couldn’t use motor vehicles to maintain the pipelines we use to supply water to cattle and wildlife,” said Dave Fisher, a Barstow rancher. Fisher was referring to water systems on federal land that ranchers may use for grazing cattle and sheep.

In addition, said Fisher, ranchers were ordered to keep their stock away from certain types of vegetation favored by tortoises.

“The overall effect has been to take about half the economic gain out of our operations,” Fisher said. “The irony of it is that the turtles have done better around cows than they have in the Desert Tortoise Natural Area,” he added, referring to a desert preserve near Mojave where officials concede the tortoise has suffered a severe decline.

Under the critical-habitat ruling just announced, government officials said, any decisions to ban or limit activities in the designated areas will be made on a case-by-case basis.

Predicting what the government will do in a given instance is difficult, considering the mixed signals from various agencies.

With Ward Valley, for example, the Fish and Wildlife Service ruled in 1990 that the proposed dump would not further jeopardize the species. Wildlife officials said that was because US Ecology Inc. was willing to move tortoises from any excavation site and to erect nearly eight miles of fencing along roadways to keep the animals from being run over.

Steve Romano, US Ecology vice president, said Monday he was confident the firm’s plans for removing and protecting the tortoises would pass muster even with a stricter standard for habitat protection.

“Our view,” said Romano, “is that our mitigation proposals will result in a net benefit to the species and that we have nothing to fear from the new rule.”

But a draft of a tortoise recovery plan prepared by the Fish and Wildlife Service and issued last March calls for the prohibition of landfills “and any other surface disturbance that diminishes the land to support desert tortoises, other wildlife and native vegetation.”

Even within federal agencies with jurisdiction over the desert, not all officials agree. “Ward Valley will take up about 75 acres in an area that has almost 1 million acres of prime tortoise habitat,” said a government biologist who asked not to be identified. “Even with the dump there, the area has the capability of far exceeding recovery goals.”

Desert Designation

The federal government has designated 6.4 million acres of desert, touching four states but mostly in California, as critical habitat for the threatened desert tortoise. The land, divided into 12 sections ranging from about 42,000 acres to more than 1 million acres, encompasses the proposed Ward Valley nuclear dump site.