Protected Status Proposed for 2 More State Sites

President Clinton’s efforts to extend more protection to some of California’s federal lands is not ending with his interest in the Pinnacles National Monument and the thousands of rocks and small islands that dot the coastline.

The administration also continues to eye a couple of other areas: the sweeping grasslands of the Carrizo Plain in eastern San Luis Obispo County and the steep mountains rising above Palm Springs.

“They are very different and equally compelling places,” Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt said in an interview.

The Central Coast plan faces no apparent opposition, but the Palm Springs proposal is raising some questions from local officials and developers.

Last week, Babbitt asked Clinton to add about 8,000 acres to the Pinnacles monument south of San Jose, create two new monuments on federal land in Arizona and give monument status to the many federally owned islands and rocks within 12 miles of the California coastline.

Clinton signaled that he is willing to do that next year, using his executive authority.

In the case of the Carrizo Plain and the Santa Rosa-San Jacinto mountains above Palm Springs, Babbitt said the administration hopes that Congress, rather than the president, will take the necessary action.

U.S. Rep. Lois Capps (D-Santa Barbara) has a House bill pending to add protections to the 250,000-acre Carrizo Plain and Rep. Mary Bono (R-Palm Springs) intends to introduce legislation early next year to create a Santa Rosa monument.

But Palm Springs officials are raising their eyebrows at the notion of a monument in their backyard, and some residents are flatly opposed to it.

“The biggest question the council has is why, really why?” said Palm Springs Mayor William G. Kleindienst. “We have a long-standing history in Palm Springs of safeguarding our mountains.”

Although the city remains officially neutral on the monument proposal, Kleindienst expressed concern that the designation would stop proposed developments on private land near and within the monument.

The monument boundaries, as roughly outlined, would encompass 280,000 acres in the San Jacinto and Santa Rosa ranges, 55,000 acres of which are private. The rest is a patchwork belonging to the federal Bureau of Land Management, the National Forest Service, the state and the Agua Caliente band of Cahuilla Indians.

Interior officials say the monument designation would not halt development on the private parcels. The Palm Springs council has nonetheless passed a resolution requesting that the monument boundaries be drawn to exclude four proposed developments for golf courses, hotels and homes.

“I want everyone to get away from, ‘Wouldn’t this be nice,’ because we don’t know if it would be nice,” Kleindienst said of the monument proposal.

He doesn’t have to persuade Larry Paul, president of the local Mountain Coalition, whose members include some mountain landowners.

“We’re for free and open access to Forest Service lands and we feel this will be jeopardized with the establishment of a national monument,” Paul said.

He further contended that “there’s nothing significantly unique about this area that really qualifies as a national monument.” Babbitt heartily disagrees, noting that in the 1920s, a national park was proposed for the range.

“One of the great sights of the West is just about dawn in Palm Springs when the sun in the east illuminates that mountain,” he said. Interior Department spokesmen said that activities permitted in national monuments vary from site to site and that few changes would occur in the Santa Rosas. With the status, mining would be barred and the land would be permanently protected, whereas now, the federal government could sell it.

Bill Havert, executive director of the Coachella Valley Mountains Conservancy, says monument status would also promote the flow of federal money to buy private parcels from willing sellers, one of the reasons his group favors it. But he worries that Bono will include too much in her bill, hindering its chances for passage.

Bono said she wants to write legislation “that works for everybody” and if she can’t, it will be up to Clinton to create the monument, which he can do under the 1906 Antiquities Act.

Capps’ bill would designate the Carrizo Plain a national conservation area, rather than a monument, but a Babbitt spokesman said that would satisfy the administration.

“There’s a fear that if it’s a national monument, people will be trooping in,” said Capps, adding that a conservation area would also permit a greater local voice in management of the grasslands.

The dry plain, which Babbitt described as “one of the best-kept secrets in California,” is a reminder of what much of the Central Valley looked like before it was plowed into lettuce and tomato fields. The expansive grasslands are home to several endangered or threatened species and contain one of the most visible exposures of the San Andreas fault.

Most of the land is owned by the federal Bureau of Land Management, which allows grazing--an activity that officials say would continue under new protections.

Capps said she sees no reason why her bill can’t pass in the next session.

If either the Carrizo or Santa Rosa legislation fails, Babbit indicated that the administration will move ahead on its own. “I do not exclude any of the many protection options that are available,” he said.

Another area the administration was considering for monument status, the 18,500-acre Otay Mesa near San Diego, was recently declared a wilderness area by Congress, making the monument designation unnecessary.