State Lifts Restrictions on Wildlife Waystation

State Department of Fish and Game officials said Thursday that they have lifted restrictions on the Wildlife Waystation, allowing the sanctuary to reopen to the public as early as today.

The refuge was closed eight months ago for environmental and safety violations, but most of the infractions at the 120-acre site have been corrected, state officials said.

The decision allows the compound in Little Tujunga Canyon to accept all types of injured and abandoned creatures and the public to visit the park to view them.

Fish and Game spokesman Steve Martarano said a news conference announcing the decision was planned today. He said there are still some outstanding issues, but “they’re resolved enough to reopen to the public.”

Refuge Director Martine Colette said she received a letter from the department Thursday announcing its decision, but remained concerned that a last-minute hitch might develop.

“I will be excited when everything is a reality,” Colette said. “I don’t get excited until I know these things are true. I’ve been told too many things by too many people to do otherwise.

“We are ready to open for tours. You’d have to make a reservation, of course, but we’re here.”

The Waystation, which opened in 1976, remains on probation for environmental violations, such as dumping animal waste into creek beds, and still faces the threat of punitive action by a handful of state and local agencies.

But only the Department of Fish and Game has barred the privately owned compound from its primary fund-raising activity--publicly showing its exotic animals to more than 300,000 visitors annually.

The final judgment fell to Robert Hight, department director, after a major inspection Dec. 7 when the Fish and Game Commission, which oversees the department, chose not to act on Colette’s request for relief on the remaining cage violations. Those include an order for earthquake retrofitting on an orangutan cage.

Thursday’s announcement will by no means be the Waystation’s final hurdle.

The remaining cage violations involve chimpanzee and lion exhibits off the public pathway, Martarano said. They will have to be fixed, and employees will have to complete state-mandated training before the Waystation will be granted a permanent operating permit, he said.

The Waystation was denied a permit in 1997 because of substandard animal cages, but a temporary permit was issued in October.

The refuge was cited in November by the California Regional Water Quality Control Board for failing to develop an acceptable plan for removing animal waste from the compound, one of the original reasons for the closure.

The infraction carries an optional fine of $1,000 a day, which Hugh Marley, chief enforcement officer, has not imposed because board members believe that it is more important to help the Waystation achieve compliance than to punish it financially, he said.

The water treatment violation will be corrected when the Waystation raises enough money to pay for it, which could cost from $500,000 to $5 million, depending on what the water control agency wants done, Colette said.

The Waystation serves 4,500 animals on a $2-million annual budget and boasts glamorous and well-connected supporters, including actors Jeff Goldblum and Dyan Cannon, and state Sen.-elect Tom McClintock (R-Northridge).

Colette, who is regarded as a near-saint by her followers and a bully by her critics, operated the refuge for the last decade while regulators noted environmental and legal violations but stopped short of levying punishment, according to enforcement records from a host of agencies.

Hight, a career bureaucrat who became Fish and Game director last year, has a record of cooling hot political disputes.

As former executive officer of the State Lands Commission, he helped resolve the Bolsa Chica dispute between oil companies, developers and environmentalists over the cleanup and protection of the largest remaining wetlands in Southern California. He also led negotiations to preserve redwoods in the Headwaters Forest in Humboldt County.