Redwood Reader

57. Rolling Back the Rules on Roads and Condors Two important articles today demonstrate the problems conservationists deal with on a regular basis. These problems go beyond individual sites or rules and are much more related to the old development versus nature debates. Unfortunately, the developers have won so many times conservationists are often content with whatever mitigation operators are willing to throw them. When the mitigations are challenged by development or industry, the original zeal is often gone and huge sums of taxpayer money have gone to subvert those protections. In the first article, no mention is made of the now well documented destruction of forests and streams as a result of road building, which inspired the rule in the first place. Forest road building the traditional way has had major negative impacts on fisheries.
Nowhere in the article or the many road workshops I have attended is there anything like the erosion control measures on building sites back East demonstrated in Erosion Control magazine. Storm water is filtered, silt fencing surrounds all impact sites, landscape material and coir rolls protect stream banks from muddy runoff, products that bind soil particles, allow infiltration of road surfaces are coming online. These practices may be too expensive for profitable operation but they surely will evolve into more environmentally and developer friendly methods. But at this point, they want to be able to work as cheaply and quickly as possible. Because whatever rules have been put n place are inadequate or stop development entirely, results are uneven and no agreement has been reached.
In the second article we revisit old friends HCP and “careful what you wish for” on one of the largest subdivisions in California in an area where condors have been released. Habitat Conservation Plans supercede state regulations allowing some impacts to ESA listed species if the work improves or expands critical habitat, often improved as mitigation for development. Usually you get a protected percentage of a locale with some modification related to the local issue for the species benefit.
It is amazing how words can change meaning in their use. Condors are describes in a negative way as large, far-ranging, curious, needing large areas of undeveloped country and sometimes attracted to housing areas. All the effort to find habitat, capture the birds, breed them, find suitable habitat for reintroduction at thirty million bucks seems like a bargain for seventeen years of effort, but developers will claim they have lost more than that in mitigations and restrictions. They have been planning for ten years too.
As always in development cases, the money and lasting power of corporations is used to continually revisit a subject until the opposition fails. This is story of the ban on off-shore oil drilling in California., port development, water sales out of the area and a host of other issues. As the level of awareness rises, we can expect more battles to take place. While the exact issues and outcomes will vary, the results will be more or less impaired natural systems slowly recovering from massive damages in the name of human progress.
Witness the problems generated by damming rivers as one example we are all aware of. Does this mean we can remove old and less than useful dams? No. We can’t even prevent them from getting renewal permits on a fifty year basis. Are they impacting ESA listed species? Absolutely. When the chartered reason for their existence is questioned the claim of public need and grand fathered uses overwhelms obvious common sense. What weighs the difference? Perceived loss of doing things the way folks are used to with the cash flowing in the usual swales.
Cash is like rainfall in an unstable but recently roaded area. When it pours, all the old drainages are overwhelmed. Old lines of usual activity are blurred and new wealth generated, adding voices to the development side and further drowning out criticism. The new voices attack defenders of natural systems as costing them money and opportunity. The defenders say the natural world will eventually prevail- it always does. It is up to us to learn to live inside these sustainable natural systems, or nature will replace us with species that can and will do just that.
Humans are not the only species degrading pre-existing communities. Over and over, alien species are setting up shop in natural areas threatening to forever change species makeup and populations of large numbers of plants and animals. IN nearly every case, we have a less valuable invader without local enemies grabbing up habitat at amazing rates and impacting other ecosystem residents. There may be some convergence of biological operation at work. For example, shellfish that filter feed are a necessity for cleaning waters in bays and harbors. Native species, small and uneconomical, were the natural species. In some areas, East Coast oysters, which grow larger and have better market appeal, replaced them. The natives were over fished initially and then not favored, thus declining in importance to the health of the ecosystem. Now the exotic zebra mussel has arrived and has had a tremendous impact. They are crowding out regular inhabitants, grow on anything in the water, damaging boats, sluice gates, filter screens at power plants and breeding grounds of other species.
Nature will always fill a vacuum. The one constant in the world is change. Human activity always degrades natural systems. Humans will eventually go back to living in the landscape and its natural laws. In the meantime, we have become the third largest biomass of any individual species, impacting every natural system on earth.
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-na-roadless13jul13,0,6775857.story?coll=la-news-environment New Forest Rules May Pave Way for Roads
Bush plan would sweep aside Clinton policy that protected 58.5 million acres of federal land.By Bettina Boxall, LA Times Staff Writer, July 13, 2004

The Bush administration proposed new forest rules Monday that could lead to logging, mining and oil and gas development in remote country that had been protected under a policy issued in the waning days of the Clinton presidency.
The regulations would replace a January 2001 rule that banned road building and timber cutting on 58.5 million acres of roadless terrain in national forests with a policy giving state governors a say in the backcountry's management. Most of the land is in 12 Western states, including 4 million acres in California.
Hailed by conservationists, the road prohibition was quickly challenged in a series of lawsuits filed by states and various interest groups that complained it was creating de facto wilderness areas, usurping congressional authority. Early court decisions were conflicting, with two federal district judges ruling against the Clinton road ban and a federal appeals court upholding it.
The Bush administration proposal, announced in Boise, Idaho, by Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman, would give governors considerable input on the future of roadless areas. States could petition the federal government if they wanted to maintain road-building bans on all or part of the affected forestland. They also could ask federal officials to open the land to road construction, whether for logging, gas or oil development or off-road vehicle use. The decision on any petition would be made by the Agriculture secretary.
Mark E. Rey, the Agriculture undersecretary who oversees the U.S. Forest Service, said the proposed regulations were an attempt to resolve a 40-year fight over roadless areas, which make up about 30% of the country's national forests. Broad, sweeping policies, such as that issued by Clinton, haven't worked, nor have attempts to settle the issue on a forest-by-forest basis, Rey said.
"We hope that this is a middle way or a third way involving the governors to do two things," Rey said. "One is to bring good site-specific information and scientific data, and to bring to bear enough political closure to get people to agree."
He predicted the new rule's result would not be that different from the Clinton policy. "Are we going to be seeing a significant modification of the Clinton roadless rules? I don't think so," Rey said.
Among those applauding the new policy were the chairman of the House Resources Committee, Republican U.S. Rep. Richard W. Pombo of Tracy, who sees it as a welcome departure from the Clinton rule.
"This proposal embraces the fact that local people are the best stewards of our forests," Pombo said. "It injects common sense and local control into Clinton's 11th-hour, mindless edict. Forest management decisions should be made at the state level by people who know individual forest conditions best, not by bureaucrats surrounded by concrete in Washington. Today's decision will be praised by Americans throughout the West, where 90% of these roadless areas occur."
Michael Mortimer, chairman of the Society of American Foresters policy committee, said his organization was generally pleased with the new approach. "We think it takes into account the regional difference in states and gives land managers more flexibility," he said.
The Bush proposal was criticized by groups as diverse as Taxpayers for Common Sense and the Outdoor Industry Assn., a trade group for manufacturers and retailers of outdoors equipment and clothing.
"This 'opt in' approach to roadless management provides no guarantees of real, long-term protections for roadless areas," said Frank Hugelmeyer, president of the outdoor association. "The future of recreation destinations essential to the health of the outdoor recreation industry is at stake."
Without networks of roads, or the logging or mining that can go with it, the roadless forests are prized by conservationists as places of quiet and natural beauty where hikers or hunters can escape in solitude.
Doug Honnold, an attorney for the environmental group Earthjustice, who has defended the roadless rule in some of the nine lawsuits filed against it, said the proposed regulations opened the door to industrial development in the backcountry.
"The state governors can request more logging and more road building and more oil and gas development and more hard-rock mines than we've ever had before in these areas," Honnold said. "If your goal is to maximize the amount of corporate development of our national forests, this is a great plan. If your goal is to protect clean drinking water and wildlife, it's an awful plan."
Although about a fifth of California's national forestlands have no roads, the proposed regulations will probably have a greater effect in other Western states. That is because of the slightly more than 4 million roadless acres in the state, only about 400,000 are considered suitable for timber production, according to Matt Mathes, a Forest Service spokesman in California.
"We have been staying out of our roadless areas for quite some time in California, and we have no plans to build roads in roadless areas in California," Mathes said. "There is nothing on the books for the foreseeable future."
A spokeswoman for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he welcomed the chance to be involved but had to review the proposal. "The governor agrees it's important for states to be a part of this process," said spokeswoman Ashley Snee.
Pointing out that most of the potential oil and gas fields in the Los Padres National Forest in Central and Southern California lie within roadless areas, Sara Barth, California director of the Wilderness Society, predicted the new policy would open up remote areas in the state.
"Roads are the access point for all kinds of development that winds up harming the forests," she said.
Giving state governors so much potential sway in the management of federal forests represents a dramatic departure from past practice, said Sean Hecht, executive director of the UCLA Environmental Law Center.
The government will take comments on the proposal for the next 60 days before issuing a final
rule.

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http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-me-condor13jul13,1,2363064.story?coll=la-news-environment
Developer Wants to Ease Condor Rules
Tejon Ranch asks to be shielded from penalties if birds are hurt during building of homes.By Daryl Kelley, LA Times Staff Writer, July 13, 2004

The Tejon Ranch Co. has applied for a federal permit to protect developers if they accidentally harm or kill the endangered California condor by building three projects on the vast ranch north of Los Angeles.
Tejon Ranch is seeking an "incidental take" permit, which would allow the developer to "harm, harass, trap, shoot or kill" North America's largest bird during or after planned construction of a 23,000-home residential project, a 1,450-acre warehouse park and a mountain resort community along Interstate 5 in the Tehachapi Mountains.
Ranch officials and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are set to jointly explain the proposal at a public meeting in Frazier Park today. The permit process could be complete by late this year, officials said.
"The misconception is that this permit would allow for the killing of the bird," said biologist Rick Farris, a division chief of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Ventura. "What this permit does is allow them to conduct their lawful activities and assure that what they're doing is not going to cause the extinction of the species."
If the notoriously curious and sometimes destructive condors are drawn to the new developments near their Tejon habitat, ranch officials and the wildlife service have crafted plans to deal with them, Farris said. They include having a biologist on the ranch to frighten away the birds if they land on houses or swoop into backyards to swallow debris.
But environmental groups and local residents — notified of the proposal in a June 25 posting in the Federal Register — are rallying to oppose the permit. "Giving a permit to harass, harm or kill California condors really goes against all the work being done to turn around the fate of that species," said Kerri Camalo of Defenders of Wildlife, a national group. "It seems an affront to the people who have spent so much time and taxpayers' money to keep this species from becoming extinct," she said. "Now we'd allow the few condors alive in the wild to be taken in the name of development."
Ninety-nine of the rare condors live in the wild, including 49 in California, after a 25-year, $35-million effort to save the bird from extinction. An additional 149 are in captivity.
"Actually, I'm a little concerned about this," said Jesse Grantham, interim coordinator of the government's condor recovery program. "This is sort of a collision between wildlife and humans," he said. "How do we deal with an animal that can cover great distances and needs significant space to survive? The condor is a flagship species, and the flags are flying everywhere."
The 270,000-acre Tejon Ranch — a prized wildlife habitat that stretches 40 miles from north to south and 21 miles across — is a favorite feeding and resting spot for California condors. Indeed, the last condor taken into captivity, in 1987, in an effort to save the species was captured at Tejon Ranch. The birds now migrate from as far away as Big Sur and from nests in the mountains above Fillmore to hang out along wind-swept ridgelines at the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley. They love to soar with the afternoon zephyrs, experts say.
But just a few miles from those ridgelines, the Tejon Ranch resort community is planned. Authorities fear it would attract the big birds because of its high elevation in the mountains that make up the ranch's rugged backbone. Tejon Ranch general counsel Dennis Mullins said Monday that the company had worked with federal officials for more than 10 years to come up with ways to assure that condors and the development can safely coexist.
"We're going to do good things for the condor," Mullins said. "We asked in 1992, when the condors were being reintroduced to the wild, how Tejon Ranch could help the condor recovery program without impairing its property rights."
Federal officials and the development firm came up with a set of guidelines for where and how dwellings can be built, and a series of options on how to deal with condor problems if they develop. Tejon Ranch has agreed with recommendations to ban buildings along ridgelines, because they would attract the birds. Strict limits would also be placed on height for the same reason. And the design of backyards would be altered so they won't lure the big birds.
"But there is the potential that condors will start hanging around the houses; they've done it in the past," said Farris of the Fish and Wildlife Service. "When they do that we have to change their behavior. That may even involve removing them from the wild and putting them back in captivity. Although it wouldn't necessarily kill them, we're saying they would be ecologically dead in terms of their ability to contribute to the population."
This afternoon's meetings — at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. at Cuddy Hall in Frazier Park — are the first public parts of an environmental review process that Farris said he began in 1998, and will lead to the release this fall of two related analyses on the effect of development on Tejon Ranch.
The "incidental take" permit is a required part of a so-called habitat conservation plan being prepared jointly by Tejon Ranch and the Fish and Wildlife Service. The federal Endangered Species Act requires an evaluation of a project if the development site is important as a habitat of an endangered species. Because of its size, location and variety of wildlife, many experts consider Tejon Ranch as perhaps the most environmentally important undeveloped stretch of land in California. Ranch owners offered last year to sell 100,000 acres to an environmental trust, a proposal that is still pending. "We have a responsibility to process this [application] to the best of our ability," Farris said. "At a later time, we'll make a decision on whether this is something we should be doing, or not."