Federal rule limits 'critical habitat'

Map exempts large areas targeted for development

By Mary Lynne Vellinga -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PDT Friday, August 12, 2005
Story appeared in Metro section, Page B1

The Bush administration on Thursday issued a revised rule identifying parts of Sacramento and Placer counties as "critical habitat" for vernal pool species while exempting large portions of both counties where developers intend to build.

A map released by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designates 37,098 acres in Sacramento County as critical habitat for the endangered plants and animals that live in and around the seasonal wetlands called vernal pools. Most of this acreage is in the county's rural, southeastern corner, an area unlikely to face development pressure soon.

Part of the former Mather Air Force Base also was designated as critical habitat, but most of that land already has been slated by the county to be set aside as a vernal pool preserve. Property that the county intends to develop was left off the map.

Placer County, meanwhile, was largely removed from the critical habitat category, with 2,580 acres remaining, compared with 32,134 acres under a previous version of the rule issued in 2003.

"We're pleased that the urban areas we're developing have been excluded from critical habitat; it makes sense because of the economics involved," said John Hodgson, a local development consultant whose firm oversees large residential and commercial projects.

Last month, the federal agency said it had concluded that a critical habitat designation in major portions of Sacramento and Placer counties could cost the local economy nearly half a billion dollars.

But Carol Witham, president of the California Native Plant Society, said the map released Thursday leaves out some of the most significant vernal pool territory remaining in Sacramento County.

She worries that developers required to mitigate for the loss of vernal pool habitat in Sunrise Douglas and other projects in and around Rancho Cordova will use the new map to justify preserving habitat in the far southeastern county, not closer to where development is actually occurring.

"They should be mitigating in the vicinity of Rancho Cordova to build open space buffers around the city, and to preserve some of the really pristine vernal pools in that area," Witham said.

She said her group is evaluating the new rule and hasn't made a decision about whether to challenge it in court.

It was an earlier court challenge by a native plant society, the Butte Environmental Council and Defenders of Wildlife, that led to the rule issued Thursday.

In 2002, the Fish and Wildlife Service proposed designating 1.7 million acres in 36 California counties as critical habitat, including large swaths of Sacramento and Placer.

But a year later, when the agency issued its final ruling, 739,105 acres were included. Fish and Wildlife cited economic concerns as justification for excluding Sacramento County altogether.

The environmental groups sued, arguing that the federal government had shrunk the acreage without sufficient public notice or study. Fish and Wildlife agreed to revisit the decision.

The rule issued Thursday affects 858,846 acres in California and Oregon. The designation takes effect on Sept. 12.

With its new rule, the Fish and Wildlife Service is "trying to balance the economic impact versus what's going to be protective of the species," said spokesman Jim Nickles.

He said the service looked at individual census tracts and tried to assess where the economic impact would be most severe.

"We ended up taking (out) the top 20 census tracts because about 80 percent of the costs were in those tracts," Nickles said.

Under the federal Endangered Species Act, "critical habitat" is land considered essential to the conservation of threatened or endangered species. Vernal pools, which fill with water in winter and dry out in summer, host a wide variety of endangered plant and animal species. They once covered much of the Central Valley.

Despite all the wrangling over whether land should be designated critical habitat for vernal pools, it's unclear what additional protection such a designation gives. Developers building in vernal pool areas already must set aside land to mitigate for territory lost to building. Thurday's rule doesn't change that.

The Fish and Wildlife Service said Thursday that it "has found that designation of critical habitat provides little additional protection for most listed species, while preventing the agency from using scarce conservation resources for activities with greater conservation benefits."

Witham disagreed with that assessment. She said a 2004 ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco on the case of Gifford Pinchot Task Force v. the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service made it clear that when a property is deemed critical habitat, federal regulators must evaluate any development proposal on the basis of whether it will hurt a species' ability to recover, rather than just harm its chances for survival.

The Bee's Mary Lynne Vellinga can be reached at (916) 321-1094 or mlvellinga@sacbee.com.