U.S. Declares 500,000 Acres Critical Habitat for 2 Species

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared Tuesday that more than 500,000 acres of prime Southern California real estate stretching from Los Angeles to the Mexican border is critical habitat for the tiny California gnatcatcher bird and the San Diego fairy shrimp.

The ruling means developers and road builders will face another layer of government scrutiny that could cause delays and add possibly billions of dollars in new costs. The long-fought decision follows years of legal battles and appeared to satisfy no one.

“Our reaction is best described as mixed,” said Andrew Wetzler, an attorney working on behalf of the gnatcatcher. “On one hand, we’re glad that after years of delay, we finally forced the Fish and Wildlife Service to designate 500,000 acres of habitat. That’s real progress.”

But he criticized the exemption--for national security reasons--of two military bases, Camp Pendleton and Miramar Marine Corps Air Station.

Although such a habitat designation rarely stops development, it empowers federal officials to modify or prohibit projects. Developers said the designation could cost $5.5 billion, at least according to a study funded by toll road builders and others.

“We’re very unhappy,” said Laer Pearce, executive director of the Coalition for Habitat Conservation, which represents the Irvine Co., Rancho Mission Viejo Co and other home builders. “It’s a terribly flawed, head-in-the-sand designation. We’re looking at serious [housing] problems in Southern California. I don’t know how we’re going to deal with the demographic tidal wave that’s going to be hitting the state in the next 20 years.”

The habitat protections granted the fairy shrimp were the result of a lawsuit by the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity. The gnatcatcher protections resulted from a suit by the Los Angeles office of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Critical habitat is land considered crucial to the survival of creatures on the brink of extinction. The gnatcatcher designation includes 513,650 acres in Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, San Bernardino and Riverside counties, and the San Diego fairy shrimp decision includes 4,025 acres in Orange and San Diego counties, said Ken Berg, field supervisor of the service’s Carlsbad office.

The gnatcatcher is a tiny insect-eating songbird that mews like a kitten and nests in the coastal sage scrub that once blanketed coastal Southern California. The San Diego fairy shrimp is a tiny freshwater crustacean that lives in vernal pools--seasonal wetlands filled with winter rains.

Fish and Wildlife officials said developers do not have to worry. Critical habitat designations, although expensive for the government to create, offer little extra protection over what is afforded when a species is listed as threatened or endangered--position long held by Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt.

“The extra layer of protection critical habitat provides listed species is really very minimal,” said Jane Hendron, an Interior Department spokeswoman. She said the designation would not significantly hamper construction.

“It’s being portrayed as the end of development in Southern California--that’s not true,” Hendron said.