37,000-Acre Preserve Finds Its Place in O.C.

Declaring the start of a new era in environmental cooperation, the Orange County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously approved what many are calling a landmark plan intended to bolster the health of both the county’s economy and its rare plants and animals.

Touted as a national model, the plan will create a 37,000-acre preserve system designed and managed to protect troubled wildlife from encroaching urbanization, while providing developers with new certainty when building outside the preserve’s boundaries.

The plan’s fundamental tenet: the protection of 39 plants and animals through preserving and managing large blocks of native habitat such as coastal sage scrub. The land is to be shielded from development for at least 75 years.

For plan designers, the vote signaled not only the start of a new era but potentially the end of an old one--the so-called “gnatcatcher wars” between developers and environmentalists over efforts to protect the rare songbird that dwells in the shrinking coastal sage scrub of Southern California.

But while most speakers at the supervisors meeting strongly endorsed the plan, some in the environmental ranks disagreed, contending the preserve design lacked sufficient scientific review or adequate safeguards for troubled wildlife.

The program was hammered out in negotiations that spanned more than three years and involved an unorthodox coalition of landowners, environmentalists and government officials. It is the first major plan approved under a state effort called the Natural Community Conservation Planning program, or NCCP, launched in 1991 in hope of balancing conservation and business interests.

An array of developers and environmentalists Tuesday spoke in favor of the plan, which also was strongly supported by the top resource officials for both Gov. Pete Wilson and President Clinton.

State Secretary for Resources Douglas P. Wheeler hailed the plan as “an important new page in American conservation history.”

And in Washington, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt issued a statement following the vote, calling it “a loud and clear statement that Orange County is going to grow in a way that protects the unique beauty and biodiversity of this region for future generations.”

Babbitt earlier wrote the supervisors commending the county “for spearheading a process that will be looked to as a model for the country.”

Supervisor Marian Bergeson touted the preserve, saying it would reward Orange County residents for generations to come.

The preserve system, nearly nine times larger than Los Angeles’ Griffith Park, stretches in two major swaths across central and coastal Orange County, encompassing areas from Costa Mesa to San Juan Capistrano.

Participating landowners will be allowed to develop outside the reserve’s boundaries with the assurance that they have complied with the Endangered Species Act by joining in the NCCP. They still will be subject to other development approvals.

Monica Florian, Irvine Co. senior vice president, commended the plan for coordinating state, federal and local regulatory processes and employing “voluntary local consensus building versus federal regulatory mandates.”

Also voicing support were speakers from organizations as disparate as the Transportation Corridor Agencies, the Metropolitan Water District and the Nature Conservancy.

But although some joked about a “love fest” at the Hall of Administration, a rift was visible in the environmental ranks, with some criticizing the plan as lacking in both independent scientific review and wildlife protection.

Pete DeSimone, speaking for the National Audubon Society, said that while the plan has its good points, Audubon cannot wholeheartedly endorse the program as written, and he singled out what he called “the lack of good scientific review.” DeSimone and some other environmentalists have questioned why plan designers have not made more use of six independent scientists appointed by the state as NCCP advisors.

One critic declared that only “soft” environmental groups were involved in designing the plan, and others criticized the inclusion of the rare Pacific pocket mouse.

But other environmentalists spoke in support of the program.

“We are all stakeholders in this project. Let us move forward together,” said Elisabeth Brown, president of Laguna Greenbelt, who with DeSimone and the Endangered Habitats League’s Dan Silver served on a panel that reviewed NCCP proposals.

Brown said that while she has reservations about some facets of the plan, she generally supports it.

Said environmentalist Dan Silver: “I look at this plan as the best option.”

Supervisors agreed to one change requested by environmentalists by increasing public representation on the planned board of directors for the nonprofit corporation that will oversee the preserve. Most of the estimated 17 seats were earmarked for landowners and government representatives, but the number of “public members” was boosted Tuesday from one to three.

Fifteen years or more may be needed to assemble all the pieces of land for the preserve, but that land is to be managed according to special guidelines in the interim. In the end, it is to be owned by public agencies.

The agreement implementing the NCCP could be signed in late May or early June, said Tim Neely, NCCP project director with the county Environmental Management Agency.

But he noted that much more work remains, such as setting up the board of directors and putting financing in place. The funding is to come from an endowment of more than $10 million contributed by participating landowners.

Neely, a central figure in the county’s NCCP plan, estimated that he has spent 39 months on the project, which produced a pile of reports crammed with statistics and maps and standing more than a foot high.

He noted that a second Orange County NCCP plan remains to be completed--one for the southern region that has proved more controversial than the plan approved Tuesday. That proposal, for a South County reserve tentatively totaling as much as 40,000 acres, has been stalled by disagreement over plans to route a segment of the Foothill toll road through Chiquita Canyon, home to a large number of California gnatcatchers, east of Mission Viejo.

Other NCCP plans are on the drawing boards in Southern California, such as one nearing completion in San Diego County.

An air of low-key celebration filled the lobby of the Hall of Administration after the vote as government officials, business representatives and environmentalists shook hands and thanked one another.

Said Mike Spear, regional director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: “This is the first big test, and the first success.”