Natural Reorder of Things : Farmland Converted Back Into Habitat Creates Pride, Profit

Four years ago, the land was planted with crops. Part of Rancho Mission Viejo, Orange County’s largest surviving cattle ranch, it featured furrowed rows of tomatoes, barley and carrots.

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Today, an entirely different vista greets visitors to this 61.4-acre patch of the 40,000-acre ranch. Where vegetables and grains once grew, a verdant forest of cool willows, sycamores and oaks now stands.

Bobcats, deer, mountain lions and owls now regularly inhabit the place. And covering the land almost to its horizon, the lush greenness connotes a natural abundance not seen here for years.

“We’re very proud of what we’ve done,” says Gilbert Aguirre, executive vice president of the ranch, which is managed by the Santa Margarita Co.

Welcome to the Canada Gobernadora Mitigation Area, the Santa Margarita company’s effort to re-create some much-needed natural habitat, while turning a profit in the process.

In anticipation of next week’s Earth Day, company officials unveiled the project Thursday by taking journalists on a tour by hay wagon.

“We’re putting this land back to the way it was,” Aguirre said. “I think we’ve added a lot to the area.”

In transforming former farmland into wetlands and riparian woodlands, the company has also satisfied some of its legal obligations, and improved its financial outlook.

The project was conceived in 1990 when, in exchange for permission to pursue specific developments in the town of Rancho Santa Margarita, various federal and state agencies exacted promises from the company to create 29 acres of mitigating natural habitat.

In researching the process, company officials say, they discovered that many other developers were under similar orders from the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service as well as other government agencies. So, following its entrepreneurial instincts, the company decided to begin dedicating additional land and selling its services to other development agencies that likewise needed to re-create natural habitat.

To date, according to Richard Broming, the company’s vice president for planning, three other development agencies have paid a total of about $3 million to the Santa Margarita Co. for habitat that has cost the company about $1 million to provide.

Thus, in addition to the 29 acres of nature-like habitat that the company was obligated to create as mitigation for housing development and last year’s extensions of the Oso and Antonio parkways, an additional 28 acres was created for the Foothill/Eastern Transportation Corridor Agency to mitigate the environmental impact of portions of the Foothill tollway.

Another 4.4 acres have been evenly divided between Saddleback Valley Unified School District and Caltrans to mitigate for the building of a new school and construction on Ortega Highway.

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Broming said that more than 88 acres is still available for habitat development, some of which is already the object of negotiations.

As for the 61.4 acres already developed, he said, the company has spent the last four years planting it with 10,000 willow trees, 1,000 sycamores and 300 to 500 oaks. Other plant species now growing at the site include mule fat, mugwort, wild rye, deer grass, Mexican elderberry, California coffeeberry, lemonade berry and melic grass, as well as a grove of 60 oak and sycamore trees relocated from other areas rather than planted from cuttings.

The new bird life attracted to the area includes rafters, redwing blackbirds, hawks and turkey vultures.

“It’s a start,” Broming said. “It’s a philosophy and frame of mind. It’s the beginning of something that may extend further.”

To help the new plants get started, he said, the company made use of an extensive irrigation system, much of which was already in place. The result is a wide expanse of gently sloped green land that, in some areas, has already exceeded predictions of growth.

“We’re very excited,” said Diane Gaynor, a company spokeswoman. “The growth is phenomenal.”

While the area will never be open to the general public, she said, it will eventually be made available to biologists, people doing field research, various private groups and tours by area schoolchildren.

All of which makes company officials very happy at what they consider a job well done. “We want to give ourselves a pat on the back,” Aguirre said Thursday before climbing aboard the truck-drawn hay wagon for the wilderness ride.

“We’ve taken care of this land for 110 years and done a good job, but this mitigation project has been an eye-opener for all of us,” he added. “You can see how pretty it is; how many places in Orange County can you come and see that?”

Restoration Residents The Santa Margarita Co. spent about $1 million to create and restore a 61-acre riparia woodlands and wetlands habitat. Some of the plant and wildlife that can be found there: Animals: Bobcats, deer, mountain lions. Birds: Owls, tri-colored blackbirds, rafters, hawks, turkey vultures. Trees: About 10,000 willows, 1,000 sycamores, 300-500 oaks. Plants: Mule fat, mugwort, Mexican elderberry, California coffeeberry, Lemonade berry. Source: Santa Margarita Co.