Designation of Toad Habitat Cut by Half

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has approved a habitat for the endangered arroyo toad containing less than half the acreage originally proposed, but the designation could be held up by the Bush administration’s call for review of last-minute government decisions under former President Bill Clinton, officials said Monday.

On Friday, one day before Clinton left office, agency officials approved creation of a 182,360-acre habitat hopscotching from Monterey County to San Diego County.

The Fish and Wildlife Service’s original proposal in June called for 478,400 acres to be included, but its plan was scaled back after public testimony and lobbying by private landowners.

The Endangered Species Act requires the federal government to designate a critical habitat for endangered and threatened species, creating an additional level of review for building and land-use permits.

The toad zone was one of five critical habitats recently approved after the Center for Biological Diversity sued the Fish and Wildlife Service. But the new habitat rules do not take effect until they are published in the Federal Register, which Bush’s action could delay, officials said.

The approved habitat could hinder or block development of the Foothill South toll road in south Orange County, officials said.

Fish and Wildlife officials said Monday that they were studying the possible impact that a review might have on the toad habitat designation.

“It may be affected by the order from the White House,” said Megan Durham, a spokeswoman at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. “We are working to determine how we will proceed.”

Environmentalists said they were displeased by the reduced size, fearing that some crucial toad areas away from streams and rivers had been removed from the final boundaries.

Grasslands and chaparral dotted by coastal sage scrub “are very important to arroyo toads because this is where they forage for much of their food,” said David Hogan, urban wild lands coordinator for the Center for Biological Diversity, which had sued Fish and Wildlife for not designating a toad habitat.

Many toad populations, he said, also thrive in upland areas when river flooding occurs.

Developers and building industry representatives were happy to see the reduction, but expressed concern that private interests would still be subjected to additional federal regulation.

“I’m pleased if in fact the service substantially reduced the arroyo toad designation, but we’ll have to look at it to see if the reductions are meaningful or not,” said Irvine-based attorney Rob Thornton, who has sued the federal government on behalf of home builders over a habitat for the coastal California gnatcatcher, a threatened songbird.

“I would hope the Bush administration takes a fresh look at all critical habitat designations,” he said.

In the fast-growing Santa Clarita Valley in northern Los Angeles County, more than 17,000 acres were removed from the original plan, including the upper Santa Clara River area and the lower portion of San Francisquito Creek.

That exclusion was based on Newhall Land & Farming Co.’s natural rivers management plan, which the Fish and Wildlife Service decision said adequately addressed possible migration of toads in the region.

Marlee Lauffer, a Newhall Land spokeswoman, said her company had not yet seen the habitat ruling and its final boundaries.

Newhall Land and other private landowners, as well as the city of Santa Clarita and groups of recreational users, had opposed the habitat proposal.

The Camp Pendleton Marine base in northern San Diego County also was excluded from the final habitat designation because it “had the potential to substantially degrade the [base’s] military capabilities,” according to the ruling.

The arroyo toad--small, greenish-gray or buff-colored, with dark spots and warts--has been found in streams and river basins from San Luis Obispo County to Baja California. It was listed as an endangered species in 1994.