County preparing response to critical habitat designation
Chico Enterprise Record - 12/21/02
By Michelle MacEachern, staff writer

OROVILLE - Faced with a quickly approaching deadline, the county is working on its response to the designation of 70,000 local acres as critical wetlands habitat.

The deadline is Dec. 23. That's according to Assistant County Administrative Officer Star Brown, who said the county just got the request for comments on the Nov. 25. There is a request to a extend that deadline until Jan. 21, but it hadn't yet been granted during a recent Board of Supervisors discussion.

"We have a whole, wide range of concerns," County Chief Administrative Officer Paul McIntosh said recently.

The top one being that it could change the way the county develops.

"It'll delay and increase the cost of development by an additional permitting process imposed by (U.S.) Fish and Wildlife (Service)," McIntosh said Tuesday.

While environmental studies are already required, McIntosh said it's currently presumed that endangered species aren't present. The move by Fish and Wildlife changes that. Now the would-be developer has to prove that the protected habitat and species aren't present, or do something to compensate.

"It's just another layer," he said.

That could change the way some areas develop because builders will take the path of least resistance. If they know previously developable territory for housing or commercial projects now faces another delay, they're more likely to develop agricultural areas.

He said it might cost up to $15,000 to pay a consultant to help the county develop its response in such short order.

Paradise Supervisor Kim Yamaguchi noted the conflict between government requests - one demanding the county adequately plan for growth and housing, and another saying thousands of acres of habitat must be protected.

The wetland acreage was part of a plan to protect 1.7 million acres of vernal pools in California and Oregon by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which proposed in September that the land was critical to protect 15 species of plants and shrimp that depend on seasonally flooded pools for survival.

The service's draft economic analysis said the designation could cost up to $130 million overall - most of that in changes to projects, but part to public agencies and private landowners. However, the analysis also found the designation could produce some offsetting regional and local economic benefits that were tough to quantify.

The designation reportedly doesn't bar development but acts as a guideline for projects that involve federal funds. However, McIntosh laughed at the idea that it wouldn't effect individual projects.

Barbara Vlamis, the executive director for the Butte Environmental Council, told the Associated Press the designation meant no greater requirements than the Endangered Species Act, a law which prohibits or removal of a protected species of habitat.

The 15-species designation was required under a settlement between the service and the BEC, who sued the service in 2000 for failing to designate habitat for four shrimp species after they were listed in 1994.

Landowners and developers have predicted the situation will hurt property values and cost more than the agency predicts.

McIntosh said the county would use a firm already on retainer to develop the comments. They also hope to address the economic effects of that ruling. They haven't done a deep enough analysis yet to determine whether the designation effects areas where housing is planned. But he did know they centered around east Chico and north Oroville, along Highway 99 and 149.

The area in question doesn't overlap with 20,000 acres of land along the Sacramento River, recently purchased as a riparian habitat. McIntosh described the two areas as "entirely different."

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