Salamander plan dropped because of cost, federal hurdles

<p>Sonoma County supervisors voted Tuesday to pull the plug on the four-year effort to draft local rules for regulating development that intrudes on the habitat of the tiger salamander and other endangered species.</p><p>The decision came at the recommendation of county planning officials who said the approach taken by the Conservation Strategy Committee to craft wetland development and mitigation rules apparently wasn't going to gain federal approval.</p><p>They also said that switching to a new approach would cost about $500,000, which neither Santa Rosa nor Sonoma County had.</p><p>"The work has essentially stalled," said Pete Parkinson, county director of the Permit and Resource Management Department.</p><p>The decision means the county is giving up on an effort to have a committee of government officials and representatives of environmental groups, agriculture and developers draft local regulations. It comes about a month after the Santa Rosa City Council reached the same decision.</p><p>"It is regrettable that we are at this point," said board chairman Mike Kerns. "It is really a lack of funding more than a lack of willingness."</p><p>The decision makes it likely that development proposals in the Santa Rosa plain will come under more rigid restrictions. The federal government requires the designation of critical habitat to preserve areas in which the tiger salamander and three endangered plants thrive.</p><p>If developers or farmers want to make property improvements in one area, they may be required to mitigate those projects by funding environmental improvements elsewhere, such as in the Laguna de Santa Rosa.</p><p>Parkinson told supervisors that some regulatory gains have occurred that may make critical habitat designation less onerous.</p><p>He said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has adopted interim guidelines that help determine mitigation when a federal wetlands permit is required for development. He also said the committee's work had been successful in identifying wetlands areas that would be ripe for mitigation measures.</p><p>"With the interim guidelines in place, there is the view that critical habitat designation would have little or no effect on projects," Parkinson said.</p><p>A proposal for the development of a school in southwest Santa Rosa is serving as a test case for the new guidelines. If successful, the project approval process could take several months, he said, rather than years as feared by critics of critical habitat designation.</p><p>You can reach Staff Writer Bleys W. Rose at 521-5431 or bleys.rose@pressdemocrat.com.</p>