Deal set to protect habitat

By Denny Walsh -- Bee Staff Writer

Two acres of vernal pool habitat will be purchased and preserved by the developers for every acre destroyed in building a planned-community addition in Roseville, under the terms of a legal settlement announced Monday.

It is anticipated that 5,790 acres that are home to fairy shrimp and tadpole shrimp will be preserved to offset the project's impact on 2,771 acres, according to Kim Delfino, an official of Defenders of Wildlife, one of two organizations that sued in Sacramento federal court to save the shrimp habitat.

The suit targeted actions by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that allowed what is known as the West Roseville Specific Plan to proceed.

"Today's agreement signifies just how successful we can be when local stakeholders work together to achieve a common goal," Delfino said.

But Barbara Vlamis, executive director of the Butte Environmental Council, the suit's other plaintiff, was not so beneficent in her assessment.

"This settlement accomplishes what the Fish and Wildlife Service should have done two years ago - securing mitigation from this project that would promote recovery of grasslands rather than managing them toward extinction," Vlamis said.

Al Donner, Fish and Wildlife assistant field supervisor, said the law changed last year and the agency now has a mandate to work on the recovery of species as well as survival. Had that been the case when it signed off on the Roseville project, the agency might have extracted more in the way of mitigation.

"We're just glad to avoid long, costly litigation that would be a drain on the time and funds available to recover and preserve habitat," Donner added.

Vlamis said she hopes the outcome will be instructive to developers in the future.

"Maybe if development has to pay the true costs of destroying what little remains of California's endangered vernal pool grasslands, it will encourage developers to build within existing urban boundaries instead of obliterating our last remaining open spaces."

The 3,142 acres on which the project is to be built was annexed by Roseville for that purpose. It is northwest of Baseline and Fiddyment roads and is expected to add 21,000 residents to one of the fastest-growing areas of the state.

"We've settled and that's good," said Jim McKeehan on behalf of the two companies developing the property, WestPark Associates and Signature Properties. "We've got a project ready to go, and we're going to build it. We think it's a good one."

The project was challenged in an earlier lawsuit initiated by a coalition led by the Sierra Club. That suit focused on air, water and traffic concerns but did not address shrimp habitat. The first suit was resolved last year with a settlement that created a half-percent conveyance fee on the gross sales price of resales for 20 years. The fee doesn't apply to the initial purchase of homes.

The settlement announced Monday requires that 65 percent of land conserved under the terms of the first agreement be vernal pool critical habitat.

Approximately $26 million already has been paid to acquire 1,084 acres in mitigation. The funding is a no-interest loan from the developers to the Placer Land Trust, a vehicle set up by terms of the first settlement to acquire property in mitigation.

Conveyance fees will be used to retire the loan and acquire additional habitat for preservation.

Construction of the planned community is scheduled to begin this year, with the first homes going up in spring 2006.

The vernal pool grasslands to be protected by Monday's agreement fill with water during fall and winter rains, providing habitat for a wide range of plant and animal life, some of which are unique to the Central Valley, including the two shrimp species.

Scientists estimate that more than 90 percent of the Central Valley's vernal pool grasslands have been destroyed.

Posted April 2005

Other coverage of this settlement appeared in the following publications:

http://www.marinij.com/Stories/0,1413,234~26642~2812013,00.html

http://sacramento.bizjournals.com/sacramento/stories/2005/04/11/daily3.html

http://www.yubanet.com/artman/publish/article_19798.shtml