"State says rare flower planted to foil project
Action in Sebastopol amounts to criminal fraud, official says
Saturday, May 14, 2005
By MARY CALLAHAN
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
State wildlife officials believe someone planted endangered flowers at a Sebastopol building site to try to stop a disputed housing development.
Saying the act amounts to criminal fraud, state Department Fish and Game botanist Gene Cooley said his agency concluded that Sebastopol meadowfoam plants found on the Laguna Vista site were transplanted from somewhere else.
"This is a very unusual situation - in my experience, unique," Cooley said Friday. "I've had 25 years of endangered plant experience with state and federal agencies, and I have never known a rare plant to be introduced to a site to thwart development before."
But the issue isn't settled.
A Fish and Game biologist who confirmed the plants' identity and said the plants appeared to be healthy and naturally occurring in typical vernal pool habitat refused to dispute Cooley's conclusion outright.
But Sonoma State University biology Professor Phil Northen, who examined the blooming plants and alerted state and federal agencies, flatly denounced the finding.
"I'm more than anxious to stand up in any forum, legal or otherwise, and present a counter viewpoint," Northen said.
Construction has yet to begin on the 145-unit Laguna Vista site, which borders a Fish and Game preserve south of Laguna de Santa Rosa. It has been a source of contention since its inception about five years ago, with opponents citing environmentally sensitive wetlands, traffic and other concerns.
Numerous surveys by public agencies and consultants for both sides previously failed to turn up Sebastopol meadowfoam, although, because of a clerical error, one report by the builder's consultant incorrectly placed it there, developer Scott Schellinger said.
At least 22 of the meadowfoam plants, which are protected under both the federal and state endangered species acts, were found last month in two areas of the 21-acre site.
Bob Evans, a neighbor and project opponent, said he noticed them while on a walk and asked Northen and some others to come take a look.
Northen, who specializes in rare plants and vernal pool habitats, went to the site April 12. He identified the plants and alerted state and federal officials. Fish and Game biologist Liam Davis was sent to investigate the following week.
Davis said he didn't see disturbed soil or whatever it was that persuaded his boss and a colleague that the flowers had been transplanted, but he said he was focused on identifying the plant on his April 26 visit.
"I'm a scientist," he said Friday, "and I report what I see and what appears to me to be the most probable evaluation based on everything that I observed. And I observed what appeared to be an extant population."
Inadequate identification of wetlands on the site and the listing of the tiger salamander already have extended environmental review of the project, Sebastopol Planning Director Kenyon Webster said.
With just weeks to go before city officials expected to finalize the latest draft of the environmental impact report, the meadowfoam finding would have triggered another round of analysis and input from a host of government agencies and public comment, Webster said.
"So that would have significantly extended the processing time .. . probably by six months or more," he said.
But Marco Waaland, an environmental consultant for Schellinger Homes Inc., raised immediate suspicions.
In an e-mail copied to several interested parties, he cited unnatural and inconsistent soil conditions, including the absence of algae, detritus, staining and matting around the meadowfoam.
Scott Schellinger said the nature of the discovery - it was made by people he hadn't authorized to go on the site - also raised questions.
"The flowers happen to grow right inside the property development site," he added. "They weren't growing in the 10 acres of open space that we're going to give (to Fish and Game), where there are pristine wetlands that they could grow in."
Cooley wouldn't say what clues led him and the department's regional habitat conservation manager, Carl Wilcox, to determine that the meadowfoam had been transplanted, saying he feared it might give ideas to others.
But Webster and Davis said Fish and Game employees dug under and around the plants during their investigation, and Davis said he understood they found soil plugs.
"We had a variety of evidence lines which converge," Cooley said."
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