Landfill Surcharge Helps Pay for Wildlife Habitat Preservation

Surcharges on a nearby landfill have allowed the preservation of a 500-acre wildlife habitat in La Habra Heights where developers had planned to build a country club and an 18-hole golf course.

Negotiators announced this week that the thickly wooded property known as Powder Canyon will be protected as part of a 30-mile wildlife corridor linking former oil fields in neighboring Whittier to the Cleveland National Forest.

Although much of that corridor has recently become public property through county funds, the $2.4 million that bought Powder Canyon was drawn from a $1-per-ton mitigation charge on the 1994 expansion of the Puente Hills Landfill. That fund has grown to almost $7 million, all of which must be spent preserving land around La Habra Heights.

In selling the land, Forum Country Clubs of California abandoned an uphill battle waged for six years against environmentalists and City Hall. The country club proposal has languished ever since it was overwhelmingly rejected in a 1993 citywide referendum.

The announcement delighted residents who had fought Forum over its plans to move 8 million tons of earth in Powder Canyon, one of the few remaining properties to be designated a “significant ecological area” by Los Angeles County in the 1970s.

“La Habra Heights residents have always valued the natural surroundings that are the hallmark of our community,” said Roland vom Dorp, chairman of the city’s Committee to Protect the General Plan.

City Manager Les Doolittle said that although the city forfeits some property taxes through the deal, it does speed delivery of more than $200,000 in election and developer fees that Forum recently agreed to pay the city.

But now that the area will remain wild, he said the city will be asking the group that purchased the property to help pay for fire protection there, which could be provided by La Habra Heights firefighters.

A representative of the Puente Hills Landfill Native Habitat Preservation Authority, the multi-agency body that now holds the deed to Powder Canyon, said the land will now be managed much the way Whittier plans to run its portion of the corridor, leaving it largely untouched with most access limited to hiking and picnicking.