Commission will reduce fee used to protect habitats

Irony: Halt to Eagle Mountain impacted enviro plans to buy critical habitat



Coachella Valley Multiple Species
Habitat Conservation Plan area

Written by Keith Matheny
mydesert.com

Coachella Valley -- A developer fee that supports a valleywide species habitat protection plan will be reduced.

The Coachella Valley Conservation Commission, which consists of representatives from the nine valley cities, Riverside County and local water agencies, plans to reduce the mitigation fee supporting the Coachella Valley Multiple Species Habitat Conservation Plan.

The plan protects 240,000 acres of open space and 27 plant and animal species in and around the Coachella Valley, including the threatened desert tortoise, peninsular bighorn sheep and desert pupfish.

The planned fee reduction is $130 per acre for commercial or industrial development, to $5,600 from $5,730.

The fee will drop $30 per acre for developments of up to eight units in affected areas, to $1,254 from $1,284.

Tom Kirk, Coachella Valley Association of Governments executive director, said the fee reductions are prompted by a new “nexus study” required of governments to occasionally evaluate the appropriateness of fees charged for new development.

Declining property values due to the struggling economy did not have a large impact on the fee, Kirk said, because the properties often purchased for habitat protection are remote and less desirable for building, which tends to keep land values more flat.

The habitat protection program hit a potential snag in March, when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to take up a U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling overturning a land exchange that in effect halted the Eagle Mountain Landfill near Joshua Tree National Park.

The multiple species plan was counting on $250 million in long-term funding from the landfill, Kirk said, and developers potentially faced a huge fee increase without it.

But CVAG officials worked with federal and state agencies, environmentalists, and the local building industry, eventually striking a deal to continue with plans to buy critical habitat lands most susceptible to development over the next 20 to 30 years, but to shift lesser priority land purchases out up to 40 years, Kirk said.

“It drove down the fee a little bit, which was a heck of a lot better than raising it a whole lot,” he said.

Riverside County Planning Department Deputy Director Greg Neal said county supervisors are having staff return with an amended plan for a county board vote.

Other member governments will similarly have to amend their ordinances, he said.

Though the multi-species plan was adopted in 2007, to date it has raised only about $2 million in development impact fees — far below projections — due to the down economy, Kirk said.

“One of the many ironies of the plan is, when we have wildlife interests knocking at our door saying, ‘Why don't you acquire more land?' we need more development to do it,” he said.

The program has relied on about $5 million in federal grant funds and $13 million in CVAG transportation mitigation fees to pay for acquisitions, property management and biological monitoring, Kirk said.

“At CVAG, we look at it much like a developer does,” he said. “We'd rather pay a fee to help build interchanges on the I-10 than deal with the uncertainty and high cost of dealing with endangered species on a case-by-case basis.”

Tug-of-war over future of public land in Mojave Desert far from over, despite sweeping protections

Access to land such as Joshua Tree National Park is a key issue to many. (2003 / The Press-Enterprise)

By JANET ZIMMERMAN
The Press-Enterprise

Fifteen years have passed since the historic California Desert Protection Act set aside millions of unspoiled acres as wilderness, elevated Joshua Tree and Death Valley to national park status and created the Mojave National Preserve.

The legislation was the largest land conservation bill in the continental United States, hailed for its safekeeping of a long-ignored 6.37 million acres of landscape that counts "singing" sand dunes, volcanic cinder cones and world-class climbing boulders among its attractions.

"It was a hell of a battle. We didn't know how hard it would be," said Elden Hughes, of Joshua Tree, former chairman of the Sierra Club's desert committee. "I don't care where in the United States you were, you could hear me shouting when it passed."

Now, proposals are pending for desert landfills, airports, housing developments, renewable energy projects and water harvesting, pushing a new generation to find ways to balance such pressures with the need for open space.

The process has to be a consensus, said Ralph Hollenbacher, a manager at Chevron, which is planning several solar projects.

"You don't have to please all of the people, but you have to please most of the people," he said. "What may be developable for one individual may be a national monument for another."

Among Chevron's projects is a 4,000-acre development near the southeast border of Joshua Tree National Park. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management vetoed the company's two previous site choices because they were in sensitive areas, Hollenbacher said.

With new urgency, environmentalists are filing lawsuits not just to protect endangered species from urban sprawl, but also from climate change. And Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., is crafting legislation that would set aside millions more acres in the Mojave.

"If you look at the California desert, it's wedged in between two of the most rapidly expanding areas of the country, greater Los Angeles and greater Las Vegas. With that comes some intense development pressure," said Mike Cipra, California desert program manager for the National Parks Conservation Association.

Proponents of the Desert Protection Act laud it as a guardian of great expanses that provide solitude, inspiration and a refuge for wildlife. Almost 3.5 million acres were declared wilderness, which puts it off-limits to vehicles, mining and energy development. Hiking, hunting, camping and livestock grazing are allowed.

Critics say the protections are too extreme and make the land inaccessible to all but a small percentage of the population.

Some people contend that development in the desert is a necessary, and inevitable, way of keeping the state economically viable and meeting sustainable-energy goals. But others say it would prompt plant and wildlife extinctions and bring indelible changes to one of the state's last uninhabited spaces.

Competing viewpoints

Donna Charpied, an organic jojoba farmer, has lived in Desert Center for 29 years. For almost the entire time, she has been fighting the proposed Eagle Mountain landfill, which would dump Los Angeles County trash into an old iron ore pit within two miles of Joshua Tree National Park wilderness, where threatened desert tortoises roam. The case is pending before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Desert Protection Act missed a "big piece of the puzzle" by not including Eagle Mountain, Charpied said. She also is fighting energy development plans that would bring new roads and other changes.

"There are going to be places we've gone all our lives that we won't be able to, and it's not because it's protected, but because it's fenced," said Charpied, who also worries about air quality and industrialization from the projects.

Arkansas resident and retired Riverside firefighter Hallett Newman has a similar complaint about access, but it has to do with wilderness protections.

"They're closing down way too much desert," he said. "Few people have the opportunity to visit the interiors of wilderness areas because of their physical ability, when you have to hike and carry everything with you."

John Stewart, resource consultant for the California Association of 4WD Clubs, said some of his favorite spots are no longer accessible by road.

"I love getting out in the desert, driving the washes and the old roads to see where they go. You find beautiful vistas, places to have a campfire at night under the stars, places of solitude. These are places you can't really hike to."

Future protections

Environmentalists are hanging their hopes on new legislation by Feinstein, who also carried the 1994 bill.

Feinstein's latest piece, expected to be introduced within days, purportedly would create a national monument and protect public land in eastern San Bernardino County, south of the Mojave preserve.

The monument would encompass thousands of unspoiled acres of former railroad land stretching from Barstow to the Colorado River. The Wildlands Conservancy bought the land and turned it over to the BLM in 2004 for preservation. But the BLM has accepted applications for energy developments on much of that acreage.

David Myers, the Oak Glen-based conservancy's executive director, said Feinstein's bill would alleviate many impacts of renewable energy, which can consume massive amounts of water, scrape the land bare and disrupt wildlife corridors.

"If you look at the desert as a body, this will save a lot of the vital organs. It saves the heart of the desert," Myers said. "It's really important to think big and protect big landscapes."

His group supports wind and solar projects on private land already disturbed by farming or other activity.

So does Jim Dodson, one of the original Desert Protection Act proponents.

"There's enough land out there so we can have parks and monuments and wilderness and still have enough land left over for renewable energy generation," he said. "It just requires some reasoned analysis and forethought."

‘I’m Shocked, Shocked To Discover Land Use Going On Here’

by Vin Suprynowicz
Las Vegas Review-Journal

Once you’ve passed through the entrance gate to one of America’s magnificent national parks or monuments, what do you see?

Nothin’.

In most cases, mile upon mile of nothin’.

The sweeping grandeur of the Grand Canyon is not visible from any common entrance point to the national park of that name. Expect to drive several miles before you see the first signs directing you to various hotels and overlooks. (Entering from the north, LOTS of miles.)

Florida’s Everglades area the same way. Yes, the historic wetlands have been shrunken by unwise water projects further north, but many a child has gazed out upon the sweep of mostly dry grasslands after passing the “now entering” sign, asking, “Where’s the swamp? Where’s the gators?”

The traveler does not come upon these scenic wonders immediately, because those who planned these vast impoundments understood the concept of a “buffer zone.” With few exceptions, the scenic vistas are surrounded by five to 10 miles – or more – of empty space. This was done so that those enjoying the scenery would not have to gaze upon carnivals and trailer parks and used car graveyards teetering at the edge of Bryce Canyon or Yosemite Falls.

Outside the parks and monuments, the federal government may control even vaster acreage. But those lands are turned over to the U.S. Bureau of land Management, which has a different mission, seeing that those less sensitive lands are used in ways that benefit the nation.

Yet listen now to the green extremists, complaining that mining or tree-cutting or grazing is “allowed, only one valley away” or “once ridge line away” from a national park or monument.

On Nov. 4, the BLM announced that on Dec. 19 they will auction off the rights to drill for oil or gas on more than 50,000 acres of BLM land close to or adjoining three national parks in Utah: Arches, Dinosaur, and Canyonlands.

“This is a fire sale,” shrills Stephen Bloch, staff attorney for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, “the Bush administration’s last great gift to the oil and gas industry.”

“We find it shocking and disturbing,” says Cordell Troy, chief National Park Service administrator in Utah. “That’s 40 tracts within four miles of these parks.”

Read it again. Four miles outside the parks’ existing buffer zones.

Franklin Seal, spokesman for the environmental group Wildland CPR, contends “If you’re standing at Delicate Arch, like thousands of people do every year, and you’re looking through the arch, you could see drill pads on the hillside behind it. That’s how ridiculous this proposed lease sale is.”

See people earning an honest wage, working to heat our homes and fill our gas tanks … by using binoculars, perhaps?

In an era when economically struggling Americans actually celebrate when gasoline prices fall below three dollars a gallon – when this nation needs to develop all its domestic resources to reduce its dependence on foreign oil – there’s nothing “silly” about creating wealth and real jobs by allowing entrepreneurs to risk their own capital developing our own resources.

If the borders of the Arches National Park were not properly drawn to create an adequate buffer, it’s odd no one noticed this before. In such specific cases, the BLM might certainly compromise on a parcel or two.

But these protests are like complaining someone “almost broke” the 65 mph speed limit by driving 63 mph, or that they “almost violated” the drinking age by serving beer to a 23-year-old.

“I’m puzzled the park Service has been as upset as they are,” Selma Sierra, BLM director for the state of Utah, tells The Associated Press. “There are already many parcels leased around the parks.”

Details, details. What does that matter, when there’s serious posturing to be done?

Soon we’ll be hearing about unsightly land uses “within a hundred miles of a national park!” Since many national parks sit in closer proximity to each other than that, here in the West, such an “exclusionary zone” would bar millions of acres of deserts scrub from any productive use.

Which, one begins to suspect, is precisely what the green extreme has in mind.

Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the daily Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Renewable-energy push puts all eyes on desert

Federal agency flooded with developer proposals


By Mike Lee
San Diego Union-Tribune


Speculators have filed applications to develop more than 1 million acres of desert in Southern California with solar, wind and geothermal power plants, setting up a classic clash over land use with environmentalists and off-road enthusiasts.

They have submitted at least 130 proposals with the Bureau of Land Management, which oversees all of the territory, in recent years and especially since 2007. The interest is so hot that even if many of the projects fall through, the remaining ones would change the look of the arid landscape.

California, particularly the southern half, is the epicenter of the nation's push for renewable energy. While some of the bureau's parcels in the state already contain wind and geothermal facilities, the agency hasn't approved any solar project here or elsewhere.

Last week, leaders for the bureau called a timeout in accepting new applications for solar developments, the most active category of renewable-energy proposals. They want to assess the environmental, social and economic impacts of such activity in the Southwest, starting with public meetings this month.

Despite state and local demands to increase production of renewable power and growing concern about fossil fuels' influence on global warming, the agency “did not anticipate the level of interest that was shown in 2007 and in the first part of 2008. The applications started coming in fast and furious,” said Linda Resseguie, manager of the solar review process in Washington, D.C.

Although many of the bureau's properties may look barren, they generate interest from environmental and recreation groups. Off-roaders are fighting to keep their open space in spots such as Imperial County's Truckhaven, while conservationists are vying to preserve relatively pristine stretches of desert by encouraging renewable-energy projects for existing homes and businesses.

“We have worked for decades to protect the desert. . . . Let's not trash what we've saved,” said Elden Hughes, who has worked with the Sierra Club and other environmental groups for decades.

David Hubbard, a Carlsbad lawyer for off-road vehicle organizations, expressed concern that “there is almost a feeding frenzy for the desert.”

Officials for the Bureau of Land Management said they are trying to balance the mounting demand to tap renewable sources of energy with the traditional value of desert land as habitat for numerous plants and animals. They said the agency has rejected about a dozen energy applications in recent months because the companies that filed them didn't provide enough information or wanted to use ecologically sensitive lands.

“We try to discourage applicants from applying for projects within the most important habitat areas,” said Alan Stein, a top bureau official in Southern California.

In the past few years, land speculation has been stimulated by tax incentives and state and national policies promoting renewable sources of energy. California aims to get 20 percent of its power from solar, wind and other renewable sources by 2010.

Numerous firms are proposing facilities on bureau-managed lands that, when combined, could provide electricity for more than 20 million homes.

The bureau controls 260 million acres, mainly desert, grassland and high-mountain terrain in the West. That includes about 11 million acres in Southern California, with 183,000 acres in San Diego County.

Unlike some other federal land agencies, the bureau accepts “multiple uses” such as mining, timber harvesting, recreational activities and projects for alternative energy.

Its officials welcome companies' plans for producing alternative power. They have completed an overarching environmental review for wind energy and started one for geothermal development.

“The nation is demanding that renewables help supply our energy needs and the BLM aims to be part of that solution,” said Matt Spangler, a spokesman for the agency in Washington, D.C. “Our vast lands and waters provide boundless opportunities.”

A few applications rolled into the bureau's offices in Southern California before 2005. Then interest spiked last year, when companies filed more than 70 requests for solar projects on bureau land in the region. More proposals are flowing in this year, along with applications for areas in Nevada and Arizona.

Companies can spend $200,000 or more to go through the bureau's energy application process – with no guarantee of final approval.

The agency's leaders said it's not clear how much they will charge for solar leases because they haven't approved a project yet. The price will be based on appraisals of targeted properties.

Fees to rent land for wind projects commonly have been based on how much power each facility produces.

Energy developers use precise measurements of sunlight and wind to gauge the value of specific parcels, and they look for areas with easy access to power lines. Proposed solar projects are clustered near Ridgecrest, Ludlow and Blythe.

Applications to harvest wind energy are concentrated near Palm Springs, Barstow and Tehachapi.

The bureau also might allow more geothermal plants, which tap heat stored underground.

One contentious concept is to build geothermal facilities in the Truckhaven area, a popular off-road playground in western Imperial County. The bureau has finished an environmental impact statement for the spot, anticipating efforts to develop it.

“Off-roaders are sensitive to the fact that we do need renewable energy projects, but . . . our off-road parks could have test wells and ugly pipes running (through them) and that ruins the users' recreation experience,” said Meg Grossglass, spokeswoman for the Bakersfield-based Off-Road Business Association.

Statewide, few projects are attracting as much attention as a solar power complex that would be erected near the Mojave National Preserve.

BrightSource Energy of Oakland looks to build a solar power system that would produce 400 megawatts, enough to power about 300,000 homes. The Ivanpah project would cover 3,400 acres of San Bernardino County.

Company officials hope to start construction next year and begin operating the plant by 2011. Of all solar projects being considered by the Bureau of Land Management, Ivanpah is the furthest along. It likely will set the precedent for other facilities.

“It's the best place in the world to build a solar plant,” said Charlie Ricker, senior vice president of development for BrightSource.

Ricker sees clean-energy projects in the California desert as a necessary step as the United States tries to break away from dirty power sources such as petroleum and coal, which are linked to global warming.

“The good outweighs the fact that some small portion of the desert may not be available for all the kinds of things that desert is used for,” Ricker said.

For some conservationists, power projects such as Ivanpah fall into the same category as nuclear fuel dumps, sewage sludge treatment plants, military bases and landfills that various entities have proposed for desert lands.

“Our take has been from day one, 'Here we go again. Here is where we can do everything out in the desert that we don't want to do in our own backyards in the city,' ” said Terry Weiner, Imperial County conservation coordinator for the San Diego-based Desert Protective Council.

Weiner and others worry that utilities will use alternative-energy projects to justify major new transmission lines such as San Diego Gas & Electric's controversial Sunrise Powerlink project.

They said a better solution is to retrofit homes and businesses with solar panels or put large solar arrays in places where farmers and others already have used the land.

Bill to protect county mountains, rivers passes House committee

California Desert and Mountain Heritage Act


Keith Matheny
The Desert Sun


A bill to protect additional Riverside County forests, mountains and rivers was passed by the U.S. House's Natural Resources Committee today, paving the way for a floor vote in the full House.

Sponsored by Rep. Mary Bono Mack, R-Palm Springs, the bill would permanently protect four new wilderness areas, expand six existing protected areas, and add additional protected land to the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument. It would include 190,000 acres of wilderness in areas including Joshua Tree National Park.

The protected lands in the bill would help preserve the habitat of the threatened Peninsular bighorn sheep, desert tortoise and mountain yellow-legged frog, as well as many other species including mule deer, mountain quail and bald eagles.

"These lands make up a valuable part of our heritage, and I am pleased that we are now one step closer to ensuring that they are preserved for future generations," Bono Mack said in a statement.

It would also designate the North Fork of the San Jacinto River, Fuller Mill Creek, Bautista Creek and Palm Canyon Creek as potected Wild and Scenic Rivers.

"These four rivers are natural treasures hiding in plain sight," said Rebecca Wodder, president of American Rivers, a national organization dedicated to river protection.

"As more and more people move to Riverside County, we can't afford to let these vital links to our past be swallowed up by our future."

The bill is sponsored in the Senate by California Democratic U.S. Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer. It has broad local support, including from Riverside County supervisors, municipalities, chambers of commerce and others. The Coachella Valley Association of Governments and 11 municipalities have formally endorsed the legislation.

"It's terrific to see a bill that truly balances the diverse needs of our community, protecting our region's open space, preserving our high quality of life while maintaining and enhancing our economy -- the California Desert and Mountain Heritage Act succeeds on all counts," Palm Desert Councilman Jim Ferguson said in a statement.

Palm Springs Mayor Pro Tem Ginny Foat praised the legislation for its "positive impact on our community's recreation opportunities, quality of life and local economy."

Pima buys land, lots of land

Opinion


By Chuck Huckelberry
Special to the Arizona Daily Star




Four years ago this month, voters authorized Pima County to spend $164 million for lands that would receive special protection under the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan. In that bond election of May 2004, more than 65 percent of those voting agreed that money dedicated to preserving native plants and animals would be money well spent.

The 2004 bond election was by no means the first time local citizens had authorized funds for open spaces. Voters in Tucson and Pima County have repeatedly used the ballot box to reaffirm their affection for their natural surroundings. Some examples:

● In 1974, when our population was 434,000 (slightly less than half what it is today), voters authorized $4.5 million in open space bonds, most of it to create Catalina State Park.

● In 1986, when the population was 630,560, 62 percent of voter approved $16.7 million for parks, open spaces and flood control, bonds used in part to create Colossal Cave and Tortolita Mountain Parks at the eastern and northern extremities of the metropolitan area.

● In 1997, when the population was 784,784, 68 percent of voters approved $36.3 million, in part to expand Tucson Mountain Park and to buy Canoa Ranch south of Sahuarita.

● And in 2004, when the population was just under 1 million, 65.7 percent of voters approved a whopping $174.3 million as the first stage in implementing the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan — probably the largest and most dramatic expression of local values to date.

So far, Pima County has spent roughly $73 million of the 2004 bond authorization to acquire six ranches that include nearly 26,000 acres of private (patented) land and more than 116,000 acres in grazing leases, in addition to smaller parcels known as "community open space" properties.

All of these purchases have been made under the watchful eye of the 11 citizens who form the Conservation Acquisition Commission. This commission has already recommended that in the next bond election the county ask voters to authorize additional bonds to buy land for open space.

The numbers — both the dollars spent and acres purchased — are important, of course, but they don't tell the whole story. The rest of the story must be read in the extent to which the numbers reflect the public will, how that will was translated into public policy, and ultimately how that policy was implemented and what it may mean to future generations.

From policy to plan

The Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan, our manual for preserving and enhancing our unique landscape, was created in reaction to the announcement in 1997 that the federal government had placed the cactus ferruginous pygmy owl on the Endangered Species List.

That decision required that measures be taken to improve the habitat that might keep the animal from becoming extinct. Invariably, such measures lead to controversies over property rights because they tend to limit where and how land can be developed — exacerbated, in this case, by the fact that the federal government later decided the owl was not endangered.

Before the federal government reversed itself (something it may yet do again), the county turned to some 200 scientists for the best advice on how to protect the owl habitat and simultaneously stop the decline of 55 other native species. The science-based conservation plan that evolved also included participation from an 84-member citizen steering committee and numerous planning panels.

The depth of the debate that preceded adoption of the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan in 2001 was unequaled in this region's history. Ranchers, real estate developers, a wide range of environmentalists as well as representatives of a dozen government agencies, remained intimately involved in the fate of 5.9 million acres in Pima County.

The policies that emerged were divided into five categories:

● Critical Habitat and Biological Corridors.

● Riparian (or streamside) Restoration.

● Mountain Parks.

● Historical and Cultural Preservation.

● Ranch Conservation.

Since 2001, these conservation concerns have gradually been expressed in the county's Comprehensive Plan, a document mandated by Arizona law, and more visibly in the huge tracts set aside as part of the Pima County Conservation Land System. The Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan provides the scientific rationale for deciding what ought to be protected as part of the Conservation Land System.

The Comprehensive Plan is the document that county zoning officials look to for guidance when developers apply for a rezoning. As an example, if a company buys 10,000 acres already zoned for low density and wants to change that to high density, it would be required to abide by the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan, which mandates that 80 percent of the 10,000 acres be set aside as open space.

Land planning tool

Though the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan is a separate entity from the Comprehensive Plan, in a practical sense the two documents are as closely related as interlaced fingers.

Most people familiar with the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan think of it mainly as a way to protect plants and animals and preserve open spaces.

It is that.

But as the adjacent map showing land acquisitions made since 2004 illustrates, the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan is also a regional land use tool, the mechanism that defines our region's urban edge (what other cities refer to as an urban growth boundary).

In that sense, it is the first major commitment that our area has made toward creating a regional land use plan.

Most of the acreage purchased with the 2004 bonds goes into the Conservation Land System to protect entire ecosystems (not merely a park here or there). This approach enhances biological diversity, minimizes the spread of exotic or invasive species and adds to the number of acres that remain roadless.

This means that those who live here 50 years from now will still have access to the natural amenities we enjoy today.

A lot of words have been written lately about the need for regional planning. The accompanying map shows that Pima County, with the help of voters who approved the 2004 bonds, has already taken a giant step in that direction by creating land use patterns that will preserve the best of our natural landscape, history and culture far into the future.

The Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan was a first for Arizona and, as several books and magazine articles have noted, it has since emerged as a model for conservation planning throughout the nation.

The Pima County Board of Supervisors has taken the first giant step in creating a sustainable Arizona future. We invite everyone to join us.