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US may OK mix of development and conservation efforts

The  Orange   County   Register

WASHINGTON - Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt is talking about
protecting the California gnatcatcher under the US
endangered-species act, but in a way that exempts developers
from the law if they voluntarily conserve some of the bird's
habitat.

State officials and a builders' representative said that Babbitt
and Interior Department administrators have expressed interest
in such a listing.

A variety of options are under review. One likely scenario is
for the federal government to declare the gnatcatcher a
threatened, rather than endangered, species.

That distinction could allow biologists to grant construction
permits for gnatcatcher territory if builders join California's
Natural Communities Conservation Plan, said John Fay, chief of
endangered-species listings for the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Builders would be saved from undergoing lengthy and rigorous
federal reviews, he said.

"One possibility is to say that as long as you are complying
with the terms of a local plan, that although your project might
involve (destroying) a listed species, it is not prohibited,"
Fay said.

The state's conservation plan was crafted in 1991 as a
substitute for adding the gnatcatcher to California's endangered
list. It has drawn high praise from Babbitt.

"Secretary Babbitt is very intrigued by the concept," Interior
Department spokesman Jay

Ziegler said Friday.

"It's definitely an issue that has been on a front burner. He is
aggressively reviewing the options California has presented."

The concept is attractive to many. Developers agree to postpone
construction while they meet with biologists and
conservationists to decide which portions of sensitive
ecosystems, and the creatures within, need protection and which
are suitable for building.

As a result, many animals and plants are protected
simultaneously. Developers are assured they won't have to fight
repeated attempts to list species found on their land.
Developers say the plan make endangered-species protection
unnecessary. They say listing the gnatcatcher as endangered
would threaten hundreds of thousands of jobs and take another
chip out of the state's poor economy. But federal regulators are
prohibited by law from considering the economic effects of
listings.

Environmentalists say that as much as 90 percent of the
gnatcatcher's coastal sage scrub habitat has been replaced by
housing, shops and agriculture. Construction already planned
could send the bird to extinction, they say. Environmentalists
say that builders might not choose to enroll in voluntary
conservation plans unless the alternative is coping with the
restrictions of an endangered-species listing.

Orange County landowners have enrolled about 90 percent of the
region's gnatcatcher habitat in the state conservation plan,
said Carol Whiteside, assistant secretary of the state Resources
Agency. 

But in Riverside County, home to about 40 percent of the
estimated 2,000 pairs of gnatcatchers remaining in the US, no
one joined the conservation plan. 

Builders and environmentalist's gave Friday's news qualified
praise.

"We're still officially hopeful the bird won't be listed (as
endangered)," said Laer Pearce, spokesperson for a coalition of
30 Southern California builders.

Environmentalists aren't ready to sign off on the idea.

"We think the case for (an endangered-species) listing is strong
under the law as it's now written," said Faith Campbell, an
attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council. The group is
one of the original petitioners that sought a listing.

"All the environmental community is pretty wary of voluntary
agreements as a substitute for listings. It leaves a lot of
wiggle room," she said.

A host of California officials, including Gov. Pete Wilson and
Resources Agency Secretary Douglas Wheeler, have been lobbying
Babbitt for weeks. They want him to embrace the voluntary
conservation plan rather than add the California gnatcatcher to
the endangered-species list, Ziegler said. A decision is due by
March 17, 1993.

Babbitt is so taken with the California concept, however, that
he has indicated he is considering it as a possible
across-the-board program for the Interior Department's efforts
to protect endangered species throughout the United States.