Plan Would Expand Nature Preserve in Orange County

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

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

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, which Irvine Co. is circulating among state and federal wildlife officials. Some worry that it could lead to fast-track approvals of projects that would destroy wetlands, granting developers more freedom with less oversight.

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

With the blessing of U.S. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, Irvine Co. and other landowners earlier agreed to a plan creating a 37,000-acre preserve for the gnatcatcher bird 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 plants and animals 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, said Monica Florian of Irvine Co.

The proposal under discussion would add 60 to 70 species to the original list of 39. The additions include such water dwellers as the tidewater goby fish, amphibians such as the arroyo southwestern toad, and birds such as the least Bell’s vireo.

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