Grand Jury says meeting the goal poses “significant financial risk” to county.
It will take another $1 billion to $1.5 billion – far more than once publicly projected – to buy up enough land to protect endangered animals and plants in western Riverside County through a conservation plan that’s unlikely to be completed on time, according to a new report from the Riverside County Civil Grand Jury.
The report, released on June 26, also chides leaders of the Western Riverside County Regional Conservation Authority for lax oversight and dubious spending. Specifically, the report questions the wisdom of spending on lobbyists and outside contractors while not paying for park rangers and maintenance for land already conserved under the 15-year-old plan.
At least one expert not connected to the grand jury echoed the basic allegations in the report.
“The (Regional Conservation Authority) and its board members need to do their job and meet the conservation obligations they signed up for,” Ileene Anderson, a senior biologist at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in an emailed statement.
“The grand jury report reveals some very serious problems. Failing to address them endangers the plan itself, not to mention the nearly 150 species that desperately need protection in western Riverside County,” Anderson added. “Plants, animals and taxpayers deserve better.”
“Besides threatening the species they are to protect by not acquiring sufficient lands and money, the RCA is allowing the already protected lands like the wonderful San Jacinto Wildlife Area to become ‘islands’ surrounded by urbanization,” said George Hague, Sierra Club Moreno Valley Group conservation chair.
Charles Landry, executive director of the Conservation Authority, issued a written response to the grand jury’s allegations, saying his organization “appreciates the Grand Jury’s acknowledgement of the work our agency provides and the challenges we face in creating the County’s 500,000-acre reserve system while facilitating the rapid permitting of transportation projects (over $4 billion to date).”
Landry suggested the organization is aware of the funding shortfall: “We also appreciate (the grand jury’s) recognition of the substantial funds required to meet the plan’s acquisition goals for the next decade.”
The grand jury, a court-appointed panel of 19 citizens who are replaced annually, examines public agencies’ inner workings and suggests improvements. Its reports typically are released once a year, usually in late June.
Enacted in 2004, the Western Riverside County Multiple Species Habitat Conservation Plan is one of the biggest land conservation programs in the country, seeking to preserve a half-million acres by 2029. The goal is to protect 146 species of plants and animals – including creatures such as the endangered Stephen’s kangaroo rat and flora such as the San Diego ambrosia plant – while still allowing future development and infrastructure.
The conservation authority, an alliance of county government and 18 cities, plus a half-dozen regional and state agencies, oversees ongoing efforts to acquire land and maintain what’s already protected through the plan.
The grand jury suggested the agency’s leadership (the authority is overseen by a 23-member board consisting of the five county supervisors and elected officials from 18 cities) doesn’t understand the agency’s purpose. Board members, according to the report, “have a limited understanding of the (the authority’s) very complex requirements and obligations.”
When the plan was established, about 15 years ago, 347,000 acres of western Riverside County already were set aside. The goal was to use a combination of state and federal financing to buy up the remaining 153,000 acres. To date, less than half that land – about 61,000 acres – has been preserved.
Initially, officials projected the cost of acquiring land would run about $4,000 an acre, or roughly $61.2 million. But over the years, as property values have gone up – and with the imposition of guidelines calling for the preservation of so-called “criteria cells” to link sensitive stretches of land – the price has shot up to about $13,000 an acre.
Figuring in added price bumps over time, the new estimated price tag could run north of $1 billion, a number the grand jury described as “staggering.”
“This represents a significant financial risk to the County,” the grand jury wrote.
What’s more, the grand jury projects that the agency isn’t on a pace to acquire the property it needs in time to meet an original 25-year timeline. “The approval process and accompanying environmental reviews (to extend the timeline) would likely be arduous, time-consuming and possibly contentious.”
The authority’s board “has not acknowledged its inability to meet the current time table,” the report added.
The grand jury also found that there isn’t nearly enough money on hand to maintain land even if the agency could buy it up. As of now, according to the grand jury, there is about $5.8 million in an endowment to pay for future maintenance and oversight of habitat land; far less than the $70 million once projected as necessary. Among other things, the current budget lacks money for park rangers, the jury reported.
Without maintenance and rangers, the grand jury reports that the land already is being degraded by “fires and floods, as well as off-highway vehicles … and homeless encampments.” Such damage, the grand jury wrote, “will only increase in the future.”
The grand jury took the Conservation Authority to task for spending on “costly contracts” for various services, including unspecified lawyer’s bills and $200,000 a year for two federal lobbyists. “These costs drain the limited general funds, used to build up the endowment and other services.”
Plan funding was to come from fees connected to new housing and commercial properties and landfill services, as well as transportation taxes and grants, among other sources, the grand jury reported.
And, in 2005, development fees yielded more than $33 million for the plan. But the recession of 2007 and ’08, and slow economic growth that followed, caused those fees to drop to $10 million a year or less, the report read. Funding sources also were capped or eliminated, and money from landfill-tipping and infrastructure fees in recent years hasn’t matched even dwindling development fees, according to the grand jury.
A bill pending in Congress seeks to free up federal funding to buy more land by creating a wildlife refuge. The bill, HR 2956, is sponsored by Reps. Ken Calvert, R-Corona, Mark Takano, D-Riverside and Pete Aguilar, D-Redlands.
The plan’s funding issue “is not new, and has been an ongoing challenge since our inception,” Landry wrote.
“That’s why we are excited” about HR 2956.
July 3, 2019
The Press-Enterprise
By Jeff Horseman
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