Search for Rare Species Has State’s Farmers Uneasy

Their lives are a never-ending battle with fruit flies and droughts, falling prices and untimely frosts. But to farmers of the San Joaquin Valley, few foes are as intimidating as the tiny kit foxes, lizards and other endangered species that share California’s fertile heartland with them.

For nearly 1,200 farmers and ranchers between Madera and Kern counties, the fear has grown since July, when they received letters from the federal government.

In an unprecedented request, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has asked them to allow their properties to be searched for rare animals and plants in an effort to create a conservation plan to save the San Joaquin Valley’s 15 endangered and threatened species. It is the first time that the federal government has aggressively looked for protected plants and animals on private property.

Predictably, the farmers are not rushing to unlock their gates--only 240 have agreed so far. Yet they face a dilemma, because they know the lifeblood of California’s farm belt--the Central Valley Project--is at stake.

To keep the spigot turned on at its enormous network of dams and canals, the Bureau of Reclamation must ensure that agriculture is not pushing endangered species into extinction. The Central Valley Project has irrigated California crops for nearly half a century, but the water contracts now are up for renewal. For the first time, the bureau has to comply with the 20-year-old Endangered Species Act.

“Landowners are pretty darned nervous,” said Howard Frick, a Kern County grower who is president of an irrigation district in the towns of Arvin and Edison. “We want to see the (species) survey completed so our water isn’t threatened, but it’s a touchy situation.”

The Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are faced with a daunting task of persuasion. California farmers have a deep-rooted resentment of the Endangered Species Act and distrust the motives of officials who enforce it.

“What’s needed is some trust between the farmers and the federal agencies,” said Laurie Simons, who coordinates endangered species permits at the Fish and Wildlife Service’s Sacramento office.

“The farmers are really afraid that their own personal pain is going to be so great. But it doesn’t have to be that way. If you get everybody together to agree on a (conservation) plan that is equitable to everyone, then the pain can be shared and people can enjoy the benefits of having a better environment.”

But many farmers fear that cooperating with the request will be like shooting themselves in the foot, because the two federal agencies have the power to severely restrict the use of their property. If an endangered species is found, landowners are prohibited from harming it without first obtaining federal permission. To get that approval, the farmer usually must take several steps, including restoration of other habitat, which can cost thousands of dollars per acre.

“Any time you have the government coming on your land and looking around, people get nervous,” said Richard Moss, general manager of the Friant Water Users Authority, which represents 25 districts that supply irrigation water to farmers. “What makes this such a hot topic is that for the first time, an agency is out actively looking for species.”

Although conflicts over the conservation law have arisen from coast to coast, they are especially bitter in the San Joaquin Valley, where farmers and ranchers have been pitted against the San Joaquin kit fox, the blunt-nosed leopard lizard, the Fresno kangaroo rat and other protected species.

Much of the anger comes from the well-publicized case of a water district that seized part of a Kern County cattle ranch to preserve it for a flowering plant. After a three-year battle, the rancher this year won the right to keep his land, and federal and state wildlife officials now admit the situation was poorly handled.

In other cases, developers’ bulldozers and farmers’ plows were blocked and fines imposed. One Bakersfield assemblywoman asserted in campaign speeches that people should violate the law and “barbecue the Mohave ground squirrel,” an endangered species, if necessary to feed their families.

“We have a real distrust of this whole effort to do these surveys,” said Loron Hodge, secretary manager of the Kern County Farm Bureau. “They say they want to work with us and won’t infringe on people’s property rights, but that hasn’t been so in the past. There’s so much animosity and distrust built up.”

Officials from the two federal agencies say their motive is to avoid the dire results that farmers fear most. The more that is known about a species, they say, the more flexible they can be in allowing agriculture and development to expand.

The biological surveys, which the Bureau of Reclamation wants to complete by June, are designed to identify where the animals and plants exist and what agricultural practices, such as cattle grazing, are compatible with them. The goal is to identify “critical habitat”--the lands considered crucial to the species’ survival--and then find ways to preserve it.

So far, survey requests have been sent to owners of 151,000 acres in six counties served by the Friant Division, which holds the first of 28 Central Valley Project contracts to expire. But eventually, many more farmers who receive federal water will be asked to cooperate.

Granting permission is voluntary, but there is a catch. The Bureau of Reclamation has warned the farmers that unless the agency gets permission, it may have to assume that the land contains valuable habitat. The agency also plans aerial surveys.

Some resentful landowners consider that a threat. “For a lot of farmers, that really makes the hair stand up on the back of their neck,” Moss said.

But Rosalie Faubion, project biologist with the Bureau of Reclamation, said the federal government will have no choice if farmers do not cooperate.

“We either have to make conclusions based on scientific knowledge or assumptions made with no real knowledge,” Faubion said. “The conservation plan will come out better if it’s based on information, not guesses.”

Much of the farmers’ anxiety comes from the government’s inability to give assurances about what will happen to their land if any of the animals or plants are discovered.

“They are extremely vague. That’s because there is a potential taking of people’s property and they don’t want to broadcast that,” said Barbara Don Carlos, executive vice president of the Building Industry Assn. of Kern County. “The property owner has been put in a very difficult position without any clear understanding of why it was happening or what the consequences are.”

Faubion said the impact on farmers is impossible to predict because it depends on the circumstances of each property. She compared coming up with a species recovery plan to choosing the path of a new highway--every parcel of land is initially investigated, but most are not selected.

“Right now, we don’t have a clue as to how much, if any, would be designated critical habitat. Some of it is in small pieces and doesn’t have any real value,” Faubion said.

The Central Valley Project contract has added a new wrinkle that unnerves farmers. The Bureau of Reclamation has said it will suspend water delivery to land inhabited by endangered species.

Most farmers are not at risk of having their water cut off. Much of the acreage has been cultivated for decades and has little value to wild animals and plants, Moss and Faubion said. But farmers might be stopped from plowing or developing uncultivated land.

Informational meetings to address the doubts were held two weeks ago, and Faubion remains optimistic that more landowners will cooperate. Some farmers were quick to sign up because they want to build developments on their land and allowing the ecological surveys spares them the expense of surveying it.

“Times are changing and most people are becoming aware of the fact that environmental concerns have more of a presence,” Faubion said. “But there are those because of a general uneasiness with the Endangered Species Act that are still going to have nagging doubts.”

Federal Survey

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has asked 1,200 farmers who receive water from the Central Valley Project to allow federal biologists to survey their land for endangered species. But most of the farmers are resisting the effort.

Source: Bureau of Reclamation