Conservation Pact May Grow, but Some Say They’re Left Out

Orange County’s biggest private landowner and key government officials are quietly considering a plan that would expand a landmark conservation pact to cover at least 60 more plant and animal species, including many in environmentally sensitive wetlands.

But some environmentalists fear the plan, spearheaded by the Irvine Co. and still in rough-draft form, would accelerate development of marshes, streams and pools--and they wonder if enough land would be set aside to compensate for habitat lost to development.

The proposal, coupled with a related effort to simplify the wetlands permit process, could produce a groundbreaking initiative to balance growth and laws protecting aquatic areas, say state and federal officials. Supporters say the plan could strengthen wetlands conservation, streamline environmental laws and provide new certainty for developers in central and coastal Orange County.

But some key environmental leaders say they have been left in the dark about the draft proposal, which the Irvine Co. is circulating among state and federal wildlife officials. Some worry it could lead to fast-track approvals to destroy wetlands, granting developers more freedom in their building plans with less oversight by regulators or the public.

“This adds up to the loss of more wetlands, absolutely,” said Marcia Hanscom, executive director of the Wetlands Action Network and wetlands chairwoman for Sierra Club California. “Which is opposite from what both the state and federal governments have said is our goal.”

But a top Irvine Co. official said the proposal could advance the cause of conservation by encouraging a big-picture approach to preserving habitat that would be more effective than piecemeal decisions.

Already, the original 1996 pact “has greatly accelerated resource conservation in the county,” said Monica Florian, an Irvine Co. senior vice president.

That pact was sparked by the early-1990s battle over the California gnatcatcher, a rare songbird called which lives in coastal sage scrub on some of the nation’s most expensive real estate.

With the blessing of U.S. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, the Irvine Co. and other landowners agreed to a plan creating a 37,000-acre preserve for the gnatcatcher and 38 other plants and animals. In return for contributing land or money to the preserve, which runs in patches from the Cleveland National Forest south through the San Joaquin Hills, landowners have been allowed to build on certain acreage outside the preserve free of strict Endangered Species Act regulations.

The agreement did not include plant and animal species that live in wetlands or grasslands, and it included some plants “conditionally”--meaning that more study was needed to ensure that they would be helped by the plan. But most participants have been so pleased with the outcome that they began wondering how to make the plan cover more species, Florian said.

Amending the pact and a related effort to alter the wetlands permit process promises to trigger widespread debate over how best to ensure the preservation of fish, frogs, shorebirds and other aquatic creatures in a region where most wetlands have been bulldozed, filled or built upon, and where numerous streams are channeled by concrete.

Some marshes and streams remain undisturbed in portions of central and coastal Orange County, including land held by the Irvine Co. As a booming real-estate market heightens development pressures countywide, a host of interests--builders, regulators and environmentalists--must wrestle with how to balance growth with strict wetlands protection laws.

Florian stressed that discussions are preliminary. “Frankly, all we’re doing right now is exploring,” she said.

The proposal under discussion would add 60 to 70 species to the original list of 39, including such water dwellers as the tidewater goby fish, amphibians such as the arroyo Southwestern toad and California tree frog, and birds such as the least Bell’s vireo and the Southwestern willow flycatcher.

It calls for enlarging the existing preserve to protect enough of the wetlands’ plants and animals that they can be disturbed or killed on certain lands outside the reserve without a time-consuming endangered-species permit process.

The tentative schedule in the proposal calls for a public meeting in January, a draft environmental impact statement by July and final approval in January or February 2000. The total price tag for studies and planning would be $1.2 million, with $375,000 coming from the state and federal governments in 1999, $450,000 from the Irvine Co. and the rest from a variety of other landowners in the affected area.

But although the original pact was hammered out by a working group of landowners, regulators and environmentalists, the new proposal apparently has circulated only in a small circle of people.

In fact, key regional officials at the two main federal wetlands regulatory agencies--the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers--say they first saw the proposal when it was provided to them by The Times.

Officials at both agencies said that while they knew an amendment was possible, they were unprepared for the amount of detail the proposal contains.

“We have repeatedly asked to be in on the ground floor in trying to do some planning for wetlands in Orange County, and we think this kind of broad-based planning is useful,” said Rebecca Tuden, the EPA wetlands permit manager for Orange County.

But “our concern is that EPA is not being included” in early discussions, she said. “It’s our opinion that [Clean Water Act] issues are not being addressed.”

The 1996 Orange County pact caught the public’s attention with images of environmentalists sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with home builders, compromising and cooperating to design a preserve. But the environmentalists most deeply involved in that process said they too feel they have been shut out of amendment talks.

“I think I should have seen this. I should have known it was in the works, and I did not,” said environmental leader Elisabeth Brown of Laguna Beach, an original member of the pact working group and now a board member of the Nature Reserve of Orange County, which oversees the preserve.

Brown chided the reserve’s executive director, county planning official Tim Neely, for not sharing news of the proposed amendment with board members.

“It’s just kind of playing it too close to the vest,” Brown said. “Why not go to the people who have the most invested in environmental protection and say, “Let’s do it together’?” Neely could not be reached for a response.

Environmentalist Dan Silver, who worked with Brown on the pact, expressed similar concerns and said he thinks the proposal should be reviewed by independent scientists as soon as possible.

“There’s a lot of major issues here that we know nothing about,” said Silver, coordinator of the Los Angeles-based Endangered Habitats League. “I would think the conservation groups should have been brought into the process before now.”

Brown, in fact, believes the 1996 working group should be reconvened to work on the amendment.

But Neely said that while public hearings will be held, he doubts a working group will be created.

“All of that will be determined,” said Florian at the Irvine Co.

Neely also said that future work hinges on a pending request for $320,000 in federal money.

One question already being raised by environmentalists is just how the existing reserve would be altered to enhance the well-being of rare plants and animals that live in wetlands or grasslands.

The 1996 reserve plan was initially anchored in coastal sage scrub, home to the gnatcatcher and considered one of the most endangered habitats in the United States. By the time of its final approval in July 1996, the plan had grown to include habitats such as chaparral and oak woodlands.

It is too soon to say if the amendment would actually add new acres to the preserve to allow for harm to wetlands species outside of the preserve, Neely said. Other measures could include weeding out nonnative plants in wetlands already in the preserve to better protect the newly added species.

“It can be setting aside land or doing more management on land that’s already in protected status,” he said.

But the draft proposal from consultant Harmsworth Associates refers specifically to enlarging the preserve area.

“There’s a general expectation that in expanding the habitat and expanding the species, it would result in expanding the preserve,” Florian said.

Changing the 1996 preserve plan would only address endangered-species issues. When developing wetlands, builders also need permits from the Corps of Engineers under the federal Clean Water Act.

The Irvine Co. is talking to the corps about using a little-known program that could streamline that permit process.

The program would establish what are known as special area management plans--covering zones where wetlands are rated low in terms of quality, clearing the way for development of some with a minimum of red tape.

Such plans can take years to create, and none yet exist in California. But work is getting underway on two plans in Orange County, covering the watersheds for San Diego Creek and San Juan Creek, although those boundaries could be expanded, a corps official said.

Wetlands experts with two national environmental groups are highly skeptical about such plans.

Most wetlands advocates think those plans “are just codes for circumventing environmental review,” said Tony Turrini of the National Wildlife Federation, an attorney specializing in wetlands. “But developers love them.”

But at the Endangered Habitats League, Silver said that taking a broad view of the wetlands permit process may have some conservation advantages.

“I don’t feel we’ve done very well with piece-by-piece permitting,” he said.

And Florian at the Irvine Co. said management areas allow more latitude to focus on environmental resources.

“Nothing . . . avoids or usurps or gets away from the fundamental law regarding wetlands,” she said.

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More Protection?

Land preserved under a 1996 plan is set aside to protect 39 types of plants and animals. Regulators are studying an initial proposal that could expand the area to cover another 60 to 70 species.