Posted on 12/18/2002 3:10:32 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe
Area residents and their elected officials are joining forces to challenge a proposal by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to designate nearly 1.7 million acres in California as critical habitat.
The designation is supposed to add a layer of protection for endangered species that live in and around vernal pools and, according to the Wildlife Service, doesn't impose restrictions on private property owners unless federal funds or permits are involved.
But property-rights advocates tell a slightly different story.
"There will be expensive, time-consuming, delay-filled consultation processes, multiple lawsuits (and) a general slowdown of activity in and around Merced County," Russ Brooks, an attorney with a property-rights advocacy firm, Pacific Legal Foundation, told a group of Merced property owners Monday.
"Environmentalists and bureaucrats will make the land-use decisions that ought to be made by local folks here in the county," Brooks said.
Brooks was speaking to hundreds of area residents who braved Monday night's rainstorm to attend a meeting regarding the habitat designation at Golden Valley High School. About 20 percent — 337,000 acres — of the proposed designation is located in Merced County.
Many of Monday night's attendees, who booed a community member who spoke up in favor of the designation, seemed to agree with Brooks' assessment.
The meeting was organized by a committee of area property owners, called Protect Our Property, which formed to challenge the proposed designation.
Along with Brooks, representatives for Rep. George Radanovich, R-Mariposa, the Building Industry Association and the county joined county Supervisor Kathleen Crookham and Congressman-elect Dennis Cardoza, D-Merced, as Monday night's panelists.
Wildlife Service representatives were invited to the meeting but, according to service spokesman Jim Nickles, were not able to attend.
The Proposal
The proposal, required under a legal settlement between the service and the Butte Environmental Council, designates habitat for 11 plant and four freshwater shrimp species that live in and around vernal pools.
According to the Wildlife Service, the agency didn't want to designate the critical habitat and, when the species were listed as endangered and threatened in the 1990s, the service said the designation wasn't prudent because it would not likely benefit the species.
The council successfully sued the service in 2000 for failing to designate critical habitat at the time of the species' listing. The council believes that the designation will add further protection to the state's remaining vernal pool habitat, which has been jeopardized by urban development and agricultural expansion.
"This is a governmental process that has frankly run amok," Cardoza said Monday. "It was never the intention of the Endangered Species Act to put millions of acres into critical habitat to support a species that's not endangered."
And, according to Cardoza, the vernal pool species are not endangered.
He said, "In my belief, you can't have 1.7 million acres being asked to be set across as critical habitat in 38 counties across two states. On its face, common sense tells you that that's not an endangered species if you can find that species in all these locations."
Nickles said last week the listing was based on rigorous scientific analysis, and no scientific information has been submitted to the service regarding de-listing the species.
Cardoza said Monday, "We need better science."
The Economic Analysis
Also in dispute is the designation's economic analysis, which is required by law and, according to Bob Smith, the county's UC planning director, is "woefully inaccurate."
The analysis stated that the costs associated with critical habitat designation in Merced County would be about $10.3 million.
"Experience tells us that landowners will face far greater burden at a far greater cost as a result of this critical habitat designation," Brooks said.
Panelists stressed Monday that property owners should write letters regarding the proposal to the Wildlife Service so those letters can be included in the administrative record.
The public comment period on the proposal ends Dec. 23, a date panelists said should be extended for further public comment.
Comments about the proposal can be mailed or hand-delivered to the Field Supervisor, Sacramento Fish and Wildlife Office, 2800 Cottage Way, W-2605, Sacramento, CA 95825. Comments can also be sent via e-mail to fw1_vernalpool@fws.gov.
Well right there is the problem you cant interject common sense into anything having to do with goverment officials.Their brains might actually explode violently out o f their ears.Heres a little trick i do before i get into a political argument with a liberal goverment official you take a 2 x 4 drill a couple of holes in it then bash yourself in the front and back of the head repeatedly when you start thinking clintoon was right on and carter deserved the peace prize you are then ready to debate them on their own level
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