Environmental
Jun. 25, 2002
Clearing the Approach
SAN FRANCISCO - Federal wildlife officials in California have quietly asked for authority to waive a government policy which, if granted, could ease the way for development projects such as San Francisco International Airport's proposed runway expansion.
The request would apply only to San Francisco Bay and specifically cites two large wetlands parcels that have in the past drawn the interest of airport officials for use as credits toward their proposed runway expansion, according to an official familiar with the proposal.
At issue is a Clinton-era edict that attempts to keep improvements in wildlife refuges from being considered as a tradeoff for environmental damage done elsewhere.
The 1999 directive to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service personnel generally prohibits including the refuges in calculating "mitigation" for harm caused by development projects. Government regulators often require property owners to undertake environmental improvement projects, such as restoring wetlands or wildlife habitat, to mitigate or lessen the damage caused by building projects in sensitive areas.
The current anti-mitigation policy for wildlife refuges could pose an obstacle if, for example, the airport wanted to help pay for restoring thousands of acres of salt ponds owned by Cargill Corp. in exchange for filling in hundreds of acres of the Bay for proposed new runways. The airport has proposed the runway plan as a way of easing the facility's chronic flight delays.
But a proposal by Steve Thompson, the manager of the wildlife service's California and Nevada operations, would eliminate at least one level of review for exceptions to the policy.
Under a $100 million deal announced May 30, private foundations and the state and federal governments are putting up the money to purchase the Cargill ponds for addition to the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge.
Two weeks before the announcement, in a May 15 memorandum to his superiors, Thompson sought the authority for issuing waivers to the mitigation policy, according to a high-ranking wildlife service administrator. Such decisions are now subject to the approval of the director of the wildlife agency in Washington, D.C.
"We have a request that the manager of the California-Nevada office be designated to make those exceptions to the policy," said Nancy Gloman, director of conservation planning and policy for the agency's refuge division.
The delegation of authority proposed by Thompson would apply only to projects in San Francisco Bay, she said. Thompson did not return phone calls seeking comment Friday.
Thompson's memorandum "talks about specific projects that might be on the horizon," Gloman said. The document specifically cites at least two large-scale wetlands sites, including the 16,000 acres involved in the Cargill transaction, that have been prominently mentioned as possible trade-offs for the runway expansion.
She said last week that officials were studying the request.
Gloman said the document cites "cooperative efforts" to restore Bay wetlands that will "require innovative partnerships." She said the transfer of authority would streamline decision-making on mitigation proposals.
Gloman said there was no specific mention of the airport. An airport development spokeswoman did not return calls seeking comment.
Gloman declined to provide a copy of the memorandum itself. The Daily Journal has requested the document under the federal Freedom of Information Act.
Officials including Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who helped engineer the Cargill transaction, have insisted there is no connection between the deal and the airport plans.
The attempt to modify the mitigation policy sparked immediate skepticism among environmentalists.
"The appearance and the timing raises some concerns," said David Lewis, executive director of Save San Francisco Bay. The organization has been at the forefront of opposition to the runway project.
"It would be a shame," Lewis said, "if such a change is an indication that the [Fish and Wildlife] service wants to be more encouraging of mitigation and it would also be a shame if it was seen as being more encouraging of mitigation."
The 1999 guidelines constituted the agency's first specific policy on the subject.
"In general, we will not allow compensatory mitigation on National Wildlife System lands because these lands are already targeted for restoration, and we will be restoring these lands in the future," the Wildlife Service said in its Federal Register description of the policy when the document was finalized in September 1999.
The guidelines also expressly forbid the use of the refuge system's 92 million acres of land and water as mitigation "banks" that could be used to justify future development. Such banks, defined as sites where wetlands are restored or improved to provide mitigation credits in advance of development projects, could be added to refuges under a set of strict criteria.
The agency said using refuge lands to mitigate development elsewhere "could result in some resource gains." But the down side, the agency's Federal Register statement says, was a risk that "we could be facilitating a significant loss of wetlands within the watershed."
At the same time, the agency recognized "limited and exceptional circumstances" in which mitigation might be allowed, the agency reported in the federal register. Those circumstances include making sure that any proposed mitigation plan "supports the mission" of the National Wildlife Refuge System, is "consistent with the purposes" of the refuge and would result in "significantly increased" natural resource benefits.
Despite its general wording, the policy has been viewed as a strong deterrent to using wildlife refuge property for mitigating the effects of development elsewhere, according to one knowledgeable government official.
"Once owned in fee by the Fish and Wildlife Service, then it's no longer available for mitigating for environmental damage not on the refuge," said the official, who did not want to be named. The official said wetlands could be considered for mitigation only if they were restored before being turned over to the government, or if binding arrangements were made for their restoration prior to the transaction.
The Cargill deal is proceeding at a pace that would appear to make such arrangements very difficult to achieve at this point. The transaction is scheduled to close in mid-December, while merely planning what to do with the property might take years.
In addition to the Cargill property, Thompson's memorandum mentions a 3,300-acre Skaggs Island parcel near Vallejo and 500 acres at Mare Island, according to Gloman.
Airport officials have long eyed both Skaggs Island and Cargill ponds for possible inclusion in a mitigation plan for the runways. Earlier this year, the airport commission voted to spend $2.14 million toward possible purchase of privately owned farmland on the North Bay island, adjacent to the government-owned 3,300-acre parcel, which the airport hopes to use for mitigation.
The airport also has reportedly been in talks with officials about restoring the parcel.
The commission that oversees the airport has pledged to restore 10 acres of wetlands for every acre filled in by the proposed runways.
Airport officials in 1998 sought to purchase up to 20,000 acres of Cargill's salt pond holdings, although the company rebuffed the deal. Sources close to the Cargill transaction, however, said airport money still could be used to help defray the estimated $200 million cost of restoring the ponds to wetlands.
"What they were trying to do is get a foot in the door at key restoration sites around the Bay ... so they could add it all up" and put together a package that would compensate for the runway fill, Lewis said.
He said that for the airport to get credit for some of the work that has been talked about, exceptions to the anti-mitigation policy probably would have to be granted.
In addition, an appraisal of the Cargill property, which set its price tag on the market at more than $200 million, was based on its value as use for mitigation, according to an official involved in the process.
Meanwhile, controversy has erupted recently when it was reported that a law firm working for the airport on the Skaggs Island project also represented the private foundations involved in putting together the Cargill transaction. The firm, Resources Law Group in Sacramento, resigned from its work for the airport in May, according to the San Jose Mercury News.
Environmentalists have rejected the notion that permission for building the runways should be bought with promises of restoring wetlands.
"Mitigation is a penalty for damage that is going to be permitted, for damage that is unavoidable," said Lewis. He said any talk of mitigation should wait until all other alternatives to expanding the runways are exhausted and any damage is minimized.
Another environmental activist speculated that the still-confidential appraisal, rooted in the Cargill property's mitigation value, was motivating the latest move by wildlife officials.
"Maybe it's because of trying to get the appraisal to hold up," said Florence LaRiviere, who chairs the Citizens Committee to Complete the Refuge.
At a hearing Thursday of a special legislative committee looking at the Cargill deal, the panel's chairman, state Sen. Byron Sher, D-San Jose, demanded that the appraisal be made available to lawmakers.
Dennis Pfaff
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