Centennial Project’s Consultants Criticized

The head planner for Los Angeles County has criticized the “unsatisfactory quality” of recent work by a consulting company preparing the environmental documents for the 23,000-home Centennial project along the Interstate 5 Grapevine pass.

The comments, in a May 11 letter to Agoura Hills-based Impact Sciences Inc., were a rare dressing-down of a consulting firm by James E. Hartl, the county’s planning director.

Although any effects on the Centennial development are unclear, the criticism has alarmed opponents gearing up to fight the proposal, which could eventually put 70,000 new residents near the Kern County line.

Environmentalists and slow-growth activists say the work of consultants such as Impact Sciences must be exceptionally reliable because, unlike some other local governments, Los Angeles County allows developers to directly hire the consultants who prepare state-mandated environmental surveys.

The practice drew criticism during the planning review for another massive project, Newhall Ranch in the Santa Clarita Valley, which won county approval in May 2003 and also used Impact Sciences as a paid consultant.

In January 2002 a botanist for Impact Sciences refused to cooperate with state investigators conducting a criminal inquiry into whether Newhall Ranch’s developer, Newhall Land & Farming Co., had destroyed an endangered plant, the San Fernando Valley spineflower, on the property, court records show.

The botanist said she had signed a “confidentiality agreement” with the developer that prevented her from speaking about the spineflower. The investigation ended with a settlement between Newhall Land and the Los Angeles County district attorney, and a promise from the developer to protect the rare species.

That incident, coupled with the new criticisms, have put activists on alert about Impact Sciences’ work at Centennial.

“We’re certainly going to be watching their findings closely,” said Peter Galvin, conservation director of the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity.

Hartl’s letter focuses less on Centennial than on flaws in the biological reports for two other pending projects that Impact Sciences was working on -- a racetrack in the Antelope Valley and a small building project near Santa Clarita. Those reports contain “inaccuracies in species identification, improper location and mapping ... and generally incomplete and careless work overall,” Hartl wrote.

“Some of these errors may seem unimportant as a result of their generally easy interpretation by those with sufficient biological knowledge, who may in some cases infer what the writer intends to express,” the letter continued. “However, [biological reports] are legal documents of public record and must meet a standard of accuracy and precision that is clear and unequivocal to any reader.”

The letter also said surveys on the Centennial property were conducted at “inappropriate” times, making the detection of rare plants and animals less likely than normal. County biologist Joseph Decruyenaere said the reference was to old work that the company had since updated with more reliable surveys.

Eric Sakowicz, the principal and co-founder of the consulting firm, defended his company’s work overall. He acknowledged some problems with the two reports mentioned in the letter, and said the company planned to “tighten up our procedures.”

Members of the advisory group that reviews the biological reports for the county say Impact Sciences has filed other inadequate work through the years.

“Consistently, we have found them to be the most difficult to review because of issues of everything from obfuscating jargon, to convoluted presentations which are very difficult to follow, to contradictions [caused by] the sorts of things you get when reports are written on top of other reports, and not written very well,” said Frank Hovore, a member of the county’s Significant Ecological Areas Technical Advisory Committee.

Daryl Koutnik, the county’s supervising regional planner, said Impact Sciences could be removed from the county’s list of approved biological consultants if it did not show improvement.

A spokesman for the developer, Centennial Founders LLC, did not return calls for comment this week.

Centennial is planned for a swath of Tejon Ranch, site of a historic cattle operation. If approved, it would be the largest development in Los Angeles County history. The proposal has already raised concerns in the U.S. military, which fears that the new houses will crowd out areas currently used for low-level flight training.

But, as in other recent development battles, flora and fauna could again take center stage.

The Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity hopes to maintain the land as open space, noting that the region is home to such rare species as the California condor and the striped adobe lily. The ranch owners, meanwhile, have proposed creating an open-space preserve covering more than a third of the 270,000-acre property.

Environmental review of the project began in March, according to the developers’ website. Once it’s completed, the final report will be presented to the county’s Regional Planning Commission for consideration.