Songbird Ruling May Halt Road Projects

Half a dozen road projects across the Southland could be affected by a judge’s ruling that the federal government must take steps to preserve thousands of acres that are critical to a tiny songbird.

In a decision issued Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson ruled that within 60 days, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service must begin the process of identifying critical habitat across Southern California for the California gnatcatcher, a threatened bird that thrives in coastal sage scrub brush. Wildlife officials have estimated that could total as much as 124,000 acres.

The designation eventually could halt construction that would disturb the bird. The federal agency, however, has a year to designate those areas.

Road projects that could be affected include two in Orange County: a proposed 16-mile extension of the Foothill toll road and the realignment of Laguna Canyon Road. Also affected would be work on California 125, 905, 78 and 76 in San Diego County and California 118 in Ventura County.

Officials with the Los Angeles office of the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group that sued to get the ruling, said it is another indication that the controversial Orange County toll road should never be built.

“I don’t know how many times this needs to happen,” said council lawyer Andrew Wetzler. “How many indications do we need that this is a biologically rich habitat, and it’s completely inappropriate to put a toll road through?”

Council officials also complained that the Fish and Wildlife Service has been dragging its feet in establishing critical habitats. The agency has lost 17 cases in four states in which it was ordered to set aside critical habitat. It has done so in only four of those cases.

“The lengths to which the government is prepared to go to avoid its responsibility under the law is truly amazing,” Wetzler said.

In Orange County, a spokeswoman for the Transportation Corridor Agencies, builder of the toll road, said it has already been preparing to protect the gnatcatcher.

Spokeswoman Lisa Telles said the road could be realigned, if necessary, or separate land containing coastal sage scrub, key to the songbirds’ survival and nesting, could be set aside to compensate for habitat lost.

Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman Joan Jewett said she had not seen the judge’s decision. But limited funding has made it extremely difficult to do the thorough analysis required for setting aside proper habitat, she said.

Agency Director Jamie Rappaport Clark made a similar point in a June statement.

“In 15 years of implementing the Endangered Species Act, we have found that the designation of critical habitat . . . has provided little additional protection to most listed species while consuming significant amounts of funding.”

The agency’s total budget for 1999 is $802 million, of which Congress set aside a maximum of $5.7 million for critical habitat work.