Salamander stalls progress across Santa Rosa plain

Town of Windsor still moving forward with infrastructure
projects
by Frank Robertson, Staff Writer
SANTA ROSA — Why worry about the welfare of an elusive
amphibian that lives in abandoned rat holes? Especially when it’s
in the way of civilization trying to build homes, roads and fire
houses needed for orderly human progress?
Those were some of the questions raised at a public hearing last
week on the fate of the California Tiger Salamander, a species
whose native habitat includes a big chunk of the fast-developing
Santa Rosa plain between Sebastopol and Santa Rosa and from Cotati
to Windsor.
“Human needs should take precedent” over the habitat
requirements of “a critter that only comes out in a full moon,”
said John Walsh, representing the local carpenters union.
North Coast Builders Exchange Chief Executive Officer Keith
Woods said he has no “disrespect for God’s creatures, including the
tiger salamander,” but he urged “a greater concern for the people”
suffering in the current economic downturn, aggravated by building
limitations.
Their comments came at one of two public hearings in Santa
Rosa’s Flamingo Hotel last week where the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service took testimony on the elusive amphibian, described as “a
large, stocky, terrestrial salamander with small eyes and a broad,
rounded snout” whose habitat includes vernal pools, seasonal ponds,
grasslands and oak woodlands.
The federal government in March listed the California tiger
salamander as an endangered species in peril of becoming extinct,
which has put a crimp in business as usual for many Sonoma County
developers while the endangered species process unfolds.
The salamander’s range, as delineated by the Fish and Wildlife
Service, takes in much of the Santa Rosa plain between Highway 116
and Highway 101 from Cotati to Sebastopol. Projects such as
Sebastopol’s Laguna Vista retail residential complex and other new
development will be delayed or possibly even denied depending on
the outcome of the salamander habitat question.
Construction of even a seemingly environmentally-friendly
project such as a proposed Sebastopol bike trail extension that is
in the salamander’s range will probably be delayed a year so it can
be reviewed and OK’d by the Fish and Wildlife Service, said
Sebastopol Planning Director Kenyon Webster.
The town of Windsor has actually moved forward on some of its
infrastructure projects after determining they would not adversely
affect tiger salamanders and therefore will probably not be
challenged by federal officials charged with enforcing the
Endangered Species Act.
Dozens of prominent Sonoma County building industry and business
representatives lined up last week to complain of economic hardship
owing to the salamander listing. Many also faulted the government’s
scientific evidence used as the basis for saying the salamander is
endangered. The Fish and Wildlife Service information concluding
the Sonoma County tiger salamander population is endangered is
“deficient, unpersuasive, inaccurate and misleading” Fourth
District Supervisor Paul Kelley told federal officials.
Despite wildlife officials’ view that destruction and
degradation of habitat are the leading causes of extinction of
plants and animals, “I don’t think there’s any correlation that
says less habitat means less species,” said Santa Rosa Chamber of
Commerce Executive Director Mike Hauser.
Environmental advocates, including the local chapter of the
Sierra Club, last week opposed loosening the endangered listing and
chided local community leaders for promoting growth at the expense
of biological diversity. Sonoma County might not have become
ensnared in the red tape of the Endangered Species Act “If local
elected leaders had shown more leadership,” said Margaret
Pennington of the Sierra Club.
“It seems short-sighted to me that the development community
would like to give away the future for short term economic gain,”
said Denise Cadman, a biologist who has a farm in salamander
territory in the Laguna. In the longer term, we may be rejecting
biological diversity “to our own peril,” said Cadman, who teaches
at Santa Rosa Junior College and is a Laguna natural resource
specialist for the city of Santa Rosa.
Last week’s hearings were the result of a lawsuit filed by two
environmental groups, the Center for Biological Diversity and the
Citizens for a Sustainable Cotati. After designating the salamander
as an endangered species, the Fish and Wildlife Service is now
proposing to downgrade the salamander listing to “threatened,”
which is less restrictive. The proposal would also exempt some
routine agricultural activities from federal environmental
review.
Sonoma County Grape Growers Association President Nick Frey
called it “reasonable and prudent” to downgrade the salamander
listing to threatened, and said grape growers were looking at more
salamander-friendly ways to farm such as utilizing permanent ground
cover crops in vineyards.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released its proposals in May
and will accept public comments until 5 p.m. on September 22, 2003.
A final determination will be announced in May, 2004.
Comments on the Sonoma County salamander population should be
sent to Attn: CTS, Sacramento Fish and Wildlife Office, 2800
Cottage Way, W-2605, Sacramento CA 95825.
Congress passed the Endangered Species Act in 1973 to help save
species facing the risk of extinction. The act prohibits “taking”
listed species, which includes killing, harming or harassing the
species.
The Endangered Species Act “is designed to protect all species
in danger of extinction, not only those that we know a lot about
and understand, — otherwise we might discover their value only
after it is too late,” says a U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
statement explaining the ESA. “Inevitably, attempts to judge which
species are worth protecting and which are not would be pointless,
as we may never know enough information about the intricate web of
life. Once a species is extinct there is no way to correct past
actions and bring it back but endangered means there’s still
time.”