Environmental Protection

Orange County has been a pioneer in a new approach to balancing the competing interests of developers and environmentalists. The effort, begun earlier in the decade, now is going through some fine-tuning at the federal level.

The devil is always in the details, and now that everybody has lived with this plan for a while, it is not surprising that some adjustments are desirable. What matters for Orange County in the outcome of any reform remains what has mattered most from the beginning. That is, that there be sufficient enforcement to protect the environment and a commitment to providing enough resources to implement any new rules.

One of the great public-policy battles in the county over the past decade centered on a tiny songbird, the gnatcatcher. Counting creatures and preserving habitat were at the heart of a continuing dispute between builders and environmentalists over the fate of the land.

The county was instrumental in the formulation of a 1993 plan in which the Wilson and Clinton administrations agreed to permit development in specified areas in return for large set-asides to preserve rare plants and species. The plan is evolving, but then and now, the bottom line for the county will have to be how well the program protects species and what the quality of the oversight is.

The Clinton administration recently announced that it is proposing to change the oversight and require specific goals for exactly how wildlife would benefit. There would be more time for study to review and comment on a conservation plan. Given the stakes once the bulldozers arrive, that makes sense, based on local experience.

Orange County provides ample evidence of the need for such care. Recall that several months ago, the county issued a grading permit for work at a site in Santiago Oaks Regional Park that was set aside as part of a 37,000-acre natural-reserve system.

Here was a case where an apparent violation of an agreement arose, perhaps even unintentionally, because of haste to cut red tape. There was a misunderstanding over a piece of land that had been the subject of previous discussion with a developer about a land swap.

So care and attention in the formulation of particular programs can avoid mistakes and clarify matters. New oversight rules and requiring specific goals for how wildlife would benefit are also in the offing. If this adjustment in Washington allows a better monitoring of species and sets clearer biological objectives, it can only be a help on the local front.

We have had other evidence of how a good agreement in principle can come under stress in the implementation. For example, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service expressed its concern last year about whether an agreed-upon cap on the elimination of habitat for the gnatcatcher in San Clemente was being exceeded.

South County recently has seen the tension increase over the proposed Foothill South toll road. The controversy over a proposed state law that would set a high bar for legislative approval for the building of a road through California state parks is an indication of the passions involving open space.

Balancing the need to accommodate new growth and relieve congestion against the imperative of preserving remaining open areas is especially important. Orange County has the benefit of experience going for it: It can apply lessons learned in central coastal areas to those that will be addressed in the southern region.

The proposed listing of population numbers needed for a rare bird or plant, or acres of vegetation, harks back to the early days of head counting over endangered species. But the advantage set-asides have over species-by-species listing is that everybody knows the rules upfront for particular parcels of land.

Perhaps the most important thing to remember is that habitat loss is irretrievable. Much of Orange County has given way to development in recent years. There also have been promising agreements, such as the huge wildlife reserve in the county’s central and coastal areas. Laguna Beach has showed how local commitment to open-space preservation helps.

The new pragmatism involved in having advance agreements on land use has to be backed with good faith. Ultimately, enforcement and resources to do the job are everything. What matters most is how those plans play out down on the ground.