The Real-Estate CRUNCH - habitat protection may actually harm certain species

Environmental attorney Eric Glitzenstein comments, The HCPs approved by the USFWS relied on `mitigation' measures that ranged from the truly laughable--including the placement of signs warning young children that they should stay off sand dunes occupied by endangered mice--to the patently inadequate--such as meager cash payments for `offsite mitigation,' which, the record showed, would not be sufficient to purchase even a fraction of the amount of habitat obliterated by the projects."

Glitzenstein, Klippstein, and several other environmentalists and scientists say that HCPs like the one for the Alabama beach mouse are all too typical. "You hear `habitat conservation plan' and it sounds very good," says Klippstein. "But the sole purpose is [to allow landowners] to get an exemption from the ESA and kill endangered species. Why make exceptions? Why make it voluntary? They did not need habitat conservation plans, and they did not need the State of California's NCCP program." If Klippstein's Spirit of the Sage Council has its way, both these programs will be rescinded. The group, joined by several other national conservation groups, has a lawsuit pending against the Interior Department, challenging the legality of the administration's no-surprises rule.

The no-surprises rule, they say, departs significantly from the way other environmental or public-protection laws are implemented. Glitzenstein explains it with a comparison: "When the Environmental Protection Agency issues permits for the discharge of emissions into the water and air, or for the storage of hazardous wastes--which would otherwise be unlawful under the Clean Water Act--it does not give dischargers an additional `incentive' to comply with these laws by promising them that their permit conditions will never change even if the permitted activities turn out to be far more detrimental to the public health and environment than previously believed."

Recent reviews of existing HCPs have pointed to a host of shortfalls, from lack of public input to lack of sound science in the planning process. A 1999 study found that 30 percent of HCPs allow 100 percent of endangered species to be eliminated in their permit areas. In response to these and other criticisms, the USFWS and the National Marine Fisheries Service recently issued a policy to toughen HCP requirements in five areas; this includes establishing better biological goals and objectives, managing for inevitable changes in natural environments, and improving project monitoring. But conservation groups claim that the agencies have again fallen short of their responsibilities; the guidelines are not mandatory, and the five-point plan creates only the illusion of reform.

Controversial HCPs have been granted to the Plum Creek Timber Company for widespread clear-cutting in the Cascade Range, allowing the company to take northern spotted owls, grizzly bears, and Canada lynx, among dozens of other species. In an HCP that Klippstein describes as the worst ever granted, International Paper has been allowed to disturb the habitat of the few remaining red-cockaded woodpeckers, trading a small portion of their habitat for the right to log off more than 5 million acres of this endangered species' habitat. Two toll roads passing through "protected" areas designated by NCCPs in southern California disturb crucial areas for endangered species such as the arroyo toad, the gnatcatcher, and the Stephens' kangaroo rat.