Mendocino College may seek easement for research station

Mendocino College officials have backed away from a controversial proposal to sell a 15-acre field research station with spectacular views of the rugged southern Mendocino Coast to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

Instead, the college board of directors has decided to explore keeping the facility and selling only a conservation easement in order to permanently shield the land from development. With an easement, the college would be eligible for a discount on its property taxes and could continue to utilize buildings on the site for research, something that was questionable at best under other scenarios that had been considered.

“This is an excellent option in terms of preserving an environment for future generations,” said Alan West, professor of biology at Mendocino College.

The tentative decision, made last week, was based on a committee’s recommendation following several months of meetings and gathering input from those interested in retaining the property for research, President Arturo Reyes said.

“It really seemed like a sound solution,” Reyes said.

The college previously had entered a non-binding agreement to sell the land for an estimated?$1.5 million to the Bureau of Land Management, which planned to add the land to the 1,100-mile-long California Coastal National Monument. The field station is adjacent to the 1,665-acre Stornetta Public Lands, which was recently added to the national monument.

But instructors, students and hundreds of area residents objected, saying the research station provided a rare opportunity for students to stay on site while conducting geological and biological research on the coast. Educators across Northern California lobbied the college to either drop the proposed sale or sell to another college that would maintain the property for research.

Arturo said the proposed sale had never been solidified and that the tentative agreement with the BLM was entered into for the purpose of getting an appraisal. The ad hoc committee that recommended the current proposal also had considered four other options, he said.

But advocates of keeping the facility were skeptical and took no chances. Earlier this year, they began to rally and their numbers quickly grew to include about 700 people, many of whom organized as Friends of the Point Arena Field Station, said Julie Bawcom, who was at the forefront of the battle to keep the facility available to students. She called the latest proposal “a win-win situation.”

As part of the easement deal, the friends group has promised to raise funds to manage and upgrade the aging facilities on the land.

Science students and researchers in Northern California have been utilizing the ecological field station for more than?30 years.

Before it became college property, the land and its structures were part of a long-range navigation station, which was operated by the Army Air Corps from 1945 to 1950 and by the Coast Guard from 1950 to 1980. Long-range navigation facilities, known as LORAN stations, for the most part became obsolete with the advent of global positioning systems. The property was declared surplus 34 years ago and other government agencies were asked to submit proposals for its future use. Mendocino College won with a bid to establish an educational field station and the college began utilizing the facilities about two years later. The college, which paid nothing for the land, did not become the official owner on the deed until 2011, about the time college officials began discussing its future, including the option of selling, Reyes has noted.

The value of the conservation easement has yet to be determined. Advocates of maintaining the college facility are expected to present plans for raising money to improve the facility in December, when the board once again takes up the proposal.

You can reach Staff Writer Glenda Anderson at 462-6473 or glenda.anderson@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MendoReporter.