All Eyes Focus on ‘Model’ Panel to Save Ecosystems : Environment: Pressure builds as unlikely alliance vies to set aside land, some in O.C., for native plants, animals.

Under normal circumstances, just getting these combative forces together in the same room--other than a courtroom--could qualify for a Nobel Peace Prize.

But these aren’t normal times in Southern California. So on one recent morning in Huntington Beach they sat side-by-side, like patients in group therapy. Developers and environmentalists. Biologists and urban planners. Attorneys and government regulators.

Facing an imminent threat that the Endangered Species Act--a law as subtle as brass knuckles--will control the future of the region’s undeveloped land, these groups set aside their differences to grapple with one of Southern California’s most volatile environmental dilemmas.

Their alliance uneasy, and their mission precarious, they are attempting to voluntarily preserve entire ecosystems for troubled species--like the California gnatcatcher--that live on some of the nation’s most valuable real estate.

Two weeks ago, their efforts attained national prominence when Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt told Congress he is so impressed with California’s innovative program that he intends to use it as a national role model for all rare animals and plants.

Such preventive endeavors to save whole ecosystems, Babbitt said, could be just the new track needed to avert the “economic train wrecks” that occur with increasing frequency as federal officials implement the 20-year-old Endangered Species Act.

All this acclaim, while energizing, makes the California group a bit nervous, since they know their success is far from guaranteed.

In fact, after a slow and rocky start, the state’s Natural Communities Conservation Planning program, initiated by Gov. Pete Wilson in September, 1991, is just now about to enter its most crucial and contentious stage.

“Secretary Babbitt keeps talking it up as such a wonderful plan,” said Laguna Beach environmentalist Elisabeth Brown, “but we don’t even know yet if it’s going to work.”

Next month, a state panel of university scientists will identify and rank the “hot spots”--the undeveloped lands in five counties considered rich areas for coastal sage scrub.

The imperiled landscape of sagebrush and other native shrubs supports about 50 rare animals including gnatcatchers--tiny, gray birds with long, black tails--as well as cactus wrens and several rare lizards. The scrub grows mostly in the hills and canyons of Orange, San Diego and western Riverside counties, but also on the Palos Verdes Peninsula and in San Bernardino County.

By November, city and county governments will use the scientists’ guidelines to draw boundaries around areas to create permanent wildlife preserves. Then they will tackle the enormous task of bargaining with landowners and finding the money and other resources to acquire and manage the property.

In all, the land at stake spreads from Palos Verdes Peninsula to San Bernardino to the Mexican border, covering about 400,000 acres, much of it privately owned and worth tens, even hundreds, of thousands of dollars per acre.

The hot spots are expected to include many areas of prime real estate, especially in the coastal hills between Newport Beach and Laguna Beach, the eastern foothills and canyons of Orange County and huge swaths of land in north coastal and central San Diego County.

Although the scientists’ guidelines will not be mandatory, their existence will put intense pressure on local governments to ensure that developers and road builders avoid the prime spots. Also, the state Department of Game and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have ultimate veto authority.

Tom Reid, a Palo Alto environmental consultant hired by the state to work on the project, said the idea is to “red-flag the areas that would be a critical loss.”

“But,” he warns, “it’s not an insurance policy. It can’t save all of it.”

Developers, particularly in Orange and San Diego counties, are anxiously waiting to see which land is “hot” and which is “cold” when it comes to protecting wildlife.

Since uncertainty is a fearsome enemy to a developer, many will be relieved to know where they stand. They hope the scientists’ guidelines will finally help determine “how much is enough” when it comes to conservation.

“This is not going to be a panacea to the developer-vs.-environmental confrontations. But it is going to give us a hell of a lot more understanding of what it all means,” said Richard Broming, a vice president of the Santa Margarita Co., which has about 35,000 acres of undeveloped ranchland in South County, much of it coastal sage scrub.

“There are still going to be people who don’t like any impact to coastal sage scrub whatsoever. They would like to see houses torn up and the habitat replanted. We won’t be able to satisfy those people at all. But now we can deal with it and understand the impacts and how growth and development can fit in.”

Environmentalists strongly endorse the concept--taking proactive measures to save entire ecosystems instead of waiting until species after species is almost extinct. But they worry that the scientists’ rules may be too flexible, and will carry little weight in halting bulldozers on lands named as hot spots.

“We thought the scientific review panel would lay down the law. But my concern is there is going to be a tremendous amount of wiggle room in their recommendations,” said Dan Silver of the Endangered Habitats League, a coalition of about 30 local environmental groups.

“That would produce a situation where the developers say they can meet the guidelines one way, and the environmentalists say it should be met in another way. There will be a lot of very difficult negotiations going on.”

With so much flexibility, Silver fears that the largest developers, the Irvine Co. and the Santa Margarita Co., will remain in control.

“This was supposed to be a collaborative, cooperative process and that’s the way it should be,” he said. “It shouldn’t be driven by one side or the other.”

Environmentalists say the San Joaquin Hills tollway is a good example of how a controversial project is allowed without the scientific panel’s input.

On Friday, environmentalists were shocked to learn that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service cleared the way for the Orange County tollway to be built through sage scrub that is considered prime habitat for many of the species. In return, the county’s tollway agency will plant new scrub nearby.

“This shows anyone who has political clout can get themselves written out of the program,” said Brown, president of Laguna Greenbelt. “We still have a lot of good people who are trying to point this program in the right direction. But if this is the way the game is played, the (conservation program) is dead in the water.”

On the other hand, the area’s largest landowners fear the loose structure will leave them easy targets for recommended sacrifices since they own large, open stretches of land.

“I’m just concerned we’ll be asked to give up a lot at this point, essentially without knowing how it relates to any future opportunities on our ranch,” said Broming of Santa Margarita Co.

California Resources Agency officials who oversee the program say some intense battles will inevitably erupt over the next few months.

“It’s always been our sense that once it got into actual planning, using the scientific data, it would be very contentious. But at least it will finally be on a substantive basis,” said California’s Undersecretary of Resources Michael Mantell.

Rather than protecting every piece of land where a gnatcatcher or a cactus wren nests, the intent is to set aside coastal sage scrub in large enough preserves to ensure the survival of a diversity of California’s native plants and animals.

Ideally, the state’s scientific team wants the preserves connected by maintaining other lands, such as grasses and woodlands, to serve as pathways for animals.

“We’ll wind up with a vignette of primitive Southern California,” said Dennis Murphy, chair of the scientific panel and director of Stanford University’s Center for Conservation Biology.

“The bad news is a few birds may be lost,” he said, “but the good news is we’ll see very extensive protection of not just coastal sage scrub but an entire scope of natural habitat.”

When the Wilson Administration and the Irvine Co. brought together these warring tribes 1 1/2 years ago, fear of the Endangered Species Act, the nation’s toughest environmental law, was palpable. State and federal officials were trying to decide whether to list the gnatcatcher as endangered.

Led by the Irvine Co., Southern California developers were willing to try almost anything to avoid the long, rigorous reviews of development projects that result when there’s a chance those projects could damage the habitat of an endangered species.

At the same time, local governments didn’t want to surrender their control to state or federal wildlife agencies. And environmentalists were eager, too, to try a new remedy because they believe the Endangered Species Act is frequently too little, too late to save species.

Such were the beginnings of Southern California’s unholy alliance.

From the onset, Mantell and other top Wilson aides predicted it would be a rough road. And they were right.

Some environmentalists dropped out in the early months, saying the Wilson Administration made the program so weak it was worthless. Many developers, mainly in Riverside County, have still refused to participate because they feel they have nothing to gain.

Even now, anyone stumbling across these bizarre allies would think they were witnessing split personalities. At the planning meetings, the talk is decidedly polite and compromising. But these same developers and environmentalists have waged an extraordinarily bitter and intense war in courtrooms over the future of one species, the gnatcatcher.

The Interior Department is due to decide by March 17 whether to declare the gnatcatcher as endangered. If the bird is listed, the now-voluntary conservation planning in Southern California would instantly become mandatory.

Carol Whiteside, California’s assistant secretary of resources, worries that some landowners and local governments would then drop out. Without their involvement, the whole program would crumble. Many developers won’t commit either way, saying all bets are off if the bird is listed.

But all of them--environmentalists, developers, local officials and the Wilson Administration--are now keenly aware that eyes at the White House and Capitol Hill are upon them. If they fail, they are left only with the problematic Endangered Species Act--which not only can cause economic gridlock, but leaves the survivability of species in doubt.

“What it comes down to,” Broming said, “is we have to make this work.”

Looking for Hot Spots

These are rough, general areas where coastal sage scrub--an assemblage of sagebrush, cactus and other native plants--grows. Next month, a state scientific panel will reveal which areas among these are “hot spots” in terms of value to the California gnatcatcher and other wildlife. Then, local and state officials will design permanent preserves with input from developers and environmentalists.

Source: The state Resources Agency