Critical Habitat Designated

Editor’s Note: This important story has received incredible press across the state.

The Interior Department (Interior) released their second, final Vernal Pool Critical Habitat (VPCH) Rule for 15 vernal pool species found in California and southern Oregon. This Rule (www.becnet.org) is a result of litigation filed by Butte Environmental Council, the California Native Plant Society, and Defenders of Wildlife over the elimination of more than one million acres of VPCH in 2003 for the 15 endangered and threatened vernal pool plants and animals.

In this Rule, some acreage was restored to counties indiscriminately omitted in the 2003 rule. For example:
“We are pleased that Interior was able to include some lands in counties previously excluded in the 2003 rule, yet their analysis leaves them vulnerable to further legal challenges,” stated Barbara Vlamis, Executive Director of Butte Environmental Council. For example, it was estimated in the Economic Analysis that the proposed VPCH would cost $152 million over 20 years in Butte County. This translates into only $13 million per year at the 7 percent discount rate used in the analysis, a microscopic 0.17% when compared with the annual economic output of the county, $7.36 billion (IMPLAN 2001). “Excluding any of the proposed VPCH in Butte County is still not justified by the economic analysis that led to this Rule,” contends Vlamis.

While acreage was added to the five counties previously excluded, other counties have lost the valuable VPCH designation in the 2005 Rule.

Designating critical habitat is the precursor to recovery for federally listed species. Habitat necessary for recovery must be mapped in order to inform statewide and local conservation planning efforts. “Removing such significant acreage from Fresno, Placer, San Luis Obispo, Stanislaus, and Tehama counties may very well prevent the recovery of the 15 species,” Vlamis asserted, “And it further calls into question the validity of the Economic Analysis that failed to provide any benefits associated with the protection of vernal pool grasslands, such as providing educational and recreational opportunities, infrastructure support services, ranching, tourism, and economy of scale by covering 15 species in one rule. The analysis also arbitrarily grouped certain census tracks to elevate costs, even though they are minimal as demonstrated above, to utilize an illogical formula to eliminate 80% of the costs of the VPCH.

If recovery is to occur, the remaining range of the 15 vernal pool species must not only be protected, it must expand. Vernal pools are unique wetlands that fill and dry every year. The eight endangered and seven threatened species are currently listed due to the severity of vernal pool destruction in California and Oregon. As the Proposed Rule indicated, Holland estimates that close to 75% of the Central Valley’s vernal pool habitat was lost by 1997; the central coast has lost at a minimum 90%; southern California’s losses exceed 95%; and Oregon has had 60% destroyed with 18% of the extant habitat considered intact (2002). More recent estimates place the habitat losses at over 90% throughout the historic range of vernal pools (Wright 2002).

As a leader in vernal pool preservation for over 15 years, BEC initiated the critical habitat designation through litigation in April 2000. The feeble attempt at economic science and the capricious policy behind the Rule will certainly lead to another challenge of the Bush Administration, allowing the courts to again shame them into following the Endangered Species Act signed by another Republican, President Richard Nixon in 1973.

County Proposed Acreage 2003 Rule Acreage 2005 Rule Acreage
Fresno 32,218 32,228 19,200
Placer 58,849 32,134 2,580
San Luis Obispo 64,171 64,378 48,134
Stanislaus 132,708 128,035 67,462
Tehama 130,752 130,691 102,837
Butte 58,849 0 24,247
Madera 95,802 0 48,359
Merced 194,335 0 147,638
Sacramento 68,820 0 37,098
Solano 67,961 0 13,415
An example of counties that lost and gained acreage with the new designation.

This article originally appeared in Summer/Fall 2005 Environmental News.