Coal Canyon Deal Moves a Step Closer

Even as a state panel on Thursday approved $6 million toward the purchase of Orange County’s Coal Canyon, officials warned that several major hurdles remain before the fragile lifeline of wilderness will be shielded from home construction.

Those hoping to preserve the environmentally important canyon must still forge a deal allowing public purchase of the privately held corridor near the border of Orange and Riverside counties. The $6 million in state money, coupled with a possible $6.5 million from other sources, falls short of the expected cost of the land, an estimated $14 million to $15 million.

Federal wildlife officials, meanwhile, said they have not approved any arrangement allowing landowner St. Clair Co. expedited development on other land in exchange for state purchase of at least 300 Coal Canyon acres. State officials on Wednesday described such a lure as part of a purchase package.

Despite the uncertainty, those who have fought for years to protect the canyon were encouraged by the Wilson administration’s Wednesday announcement that acquisition is pending.

“We’re excited. It’s a real watershed day,” said Geary Hund, resource ecologist with the state Department of Parks and Recreation, after hearing word from Sacramento of the Transportation Commission approval of the $6 million.

“In my experience, money attracts money, and it’s a real big step to have that money from the state,” said Claire Schlotterbeck, president of Hills for Everyone, a group that helped create Chino Hills State Park and has fought for the preservation of Coal Canyon.

In addition to the money for Coal Canyon, the state Transportation Commission also approved release of $4 million to buy Bair Island in San Francisco Bay. The two purchases were designed by Gov. Pete Wilson as a final major environmental acquisition before he leaves office.

Coal Canyon has been called the most environmentally valuable unprotected open space in Southern California, a precious link between the Chino Hills and the Santa Ana Mountains that allows movement of rare wildlife in a region swiftly being carpeted by homes, shopping malls and freeways.

“There is a river of life that runs through there,” Hund said.

Wild animals such as mountain lions, bobcats and coyotes and rare plants such as the Coulter’s Matilija poppy are connected by the Coal Canyon corridor. Without it, biologists fear the Chino Hills could become an island in an urban sea, its wild creatures more susceptible to inbreeding, illness--and extinction.

That specter has spurred conservationists to attempt to fend off plans for 1,550 homes in the canyon. The St. Clair Co. intends to submit those plans for approval by the city of Anaheim in January.

The current purchase was crafted by numerous players, including state parks officials and the Trust for Public Lands, a national nonprofit organization.

It calls for the state to buy 300 to 325 acres of the Coal Canyon watershed, or roughly half of the 653 acres that the Newport Beach-based St. Clair Co. bought last year for $15 million.

“There would be some real advantages to full acquisition, but we might not have the ability to do that,” said Hund. The additional St. Clair property in the Gypsum Canyon area contains environmentally important land but may simply be too expensive to buy, he and others said.

Still, biologists have concluded the Coal Canyon corridor can be saved simply by buying the watershed, Hund said.

Despite news that the land may be protected, some worried environmentalists were adding up the numbers and hoping enough money can be assembled to buy all the canyon land.

“Unless we’re looking at major amounts of money, it’s going to be difficult to craft a corridor for mountain lions if you’re going to crowd development up on either side of it,” said environmental leader Elisabeth Brown.

Nor does the state plan call for buying the 32-acre Mancha Co. parcel of Coal Canyon north of the Riverside Freeway. Conservationists have been working independently to buy that land and complete the link between the state park and national forest.

State officials outline a funding package to buy half the St. Clair land with the new $6 million, $4.5 million from other sources and about $2 million from Caltrans to offset environmental damage caused by future widening of the Riverside Freeway east of Coal Canyon.

“With that $6 million, we have at least half the cost of the project, and [there are] enough other possibilities that I am really confident we are over the hump and that this is going to happen,” said Richard Rayburn, chief of the resource management division of the state parks department.

But one of those possibilities, the widening project, is not yet certain. A proposal undergoing environmental review calls for adding one lane to each side of the busy highway between California 241 and California 71, with a third lane added in some spots, said Rose Orem, spokeswoman for the Caltrans district office covering Orange County. The 3-mile project would make the highway 10 lanes wide in some places.

Heightening the uncertainty, no decision has been made that any money to offset environmental damage from the project would go toward the canyon purchase, she said.

“It hasn’t been decided that we will be contributing to the Coal Canyon project,” Orem said.

However, Bob Wolf, chair of the Transportation Commission that supervises Caltrans, has said the project is a priority to Wilson.

The state’s pot of money may also include $1 million budgeted by Orange County to help save the corridor. But the county has not formally committed money, said Bob Hamilton of the county’s Public Resources Department.

“Details have not been worked out, and there is no agreement that commits that money by the Board of Supervisors,” Hamilton said.

As described by state officials, the package also would encompass special agreements allowing St. Clair expedited development on environmentally sensitive land in Gypsum Canyon and Loma Linda.

Still, a key federal wildlife official said Thursday that while his agency strongly supports public ownership of Coal Canyon, it has not approved the speeding up of any development elsewhere.

“We’re not anywhere near a point where we have signed off on projects in those areas or made any sort of agreement,” said James Bartel, assistant field supervisor with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Times staff writer Frank Clifford contributed to this story.

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River of Life

State officials hope to purchase more than 300 acres to preserve Coal Canyon as a wildlife corridor.

(map)

Source: California Department of Parks and Recreation