Board Votes $1 Million for Coal Canyon Preservation

Orange County supervisors on Tuesday agreed to spend $1 million to help preserve a portion of Coal Canyon that officials and activists alike have long regarded as the most environmentally valuable stretch of unprotected open space in Southern California.

The canyon, near the border between Orange and Riverside counties, links Chino Hills State Park and the Cleveland National Forest.

Supporters of the plan say setting aside the land would assure the viability of wildlife in the park by creating a continuous natural corridor through a region under intense development pressure.

The money is the county’s contribution to the $20-million cost of a 653-acre parcel south of the Riverside Freeway that makes up the bulk of the corridor.

Supervisors voted 4 to 0 to put the money into an escrow account while the state, which would pay the balance of the cost, negotiates with the property owner.

Supervisor Cynthia Coad was out of town.

Supervisor Todd Spitzer, whose district includes Coal Canyon, said that he and the other board members have come to recognize the environmental value of creating the corridor.

The proposed purchase would connect Chino Hills park in the north by allowing wildlife such as mountain lions, deer and coyotes to travel through an underpass below the Riverside Freeway and into the preserve, Spitzer said.

Spitzer recently proposed buying part of the Barham Ranch property in Orange, which he said would allow animals to travel further south from Coal Canyon into Irvine Regional Park without being blocked by development.

“It’s a whole wildlife corridor that I’ve been trying to get connected,” Spitzer said.

The state is hoping to buy the Coal Canyon parcel from developer St. Clair Co. Negotiations could last up to a year, said a state spokesman.

Also needed to complete the corridor is a 32-acre parcel north of the freeway and downstream from the Green River Gold Course.

But purchase of the property is not as far along as the southern parcel.

“People don’t realize that right in the middle of Orange, Los Angeles and Riverside counties is this incredibly significant natural area, which is within two hours’ drive of half the population of California,” said Richard Rayburn, chief of the resource management division for California’s state parks.

The habitats of several species of wild animals, including mountain lions, bobcats and coyotes, as well as plants such as the uncommon Coulter’s Matilija poppy, are connected by the Coal Canyon corridor.

If the corridor isn’t maintained, biologists fear, the Chino Hills park could become an island in an urban sea, its vegetation and wild creatures more susceptible to inbreeding, illness and extinction.

“The state and local governments have over $150 million invested in open space and valuable habitat in the Whittier-Chino Hills area, so with this acquisition to ensure connectivity, we hope to protect that investment,” Rayburn said.

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River of Life

“State and county officials hope to buy up to 653 acres to preserve Coal Canyon as a wildlife corridor.”