Dirt dumped on rare habitat at Cal State San Bernardino
Press-Enterprise 2/7/07
The move normally wouldn't have been so bad. But the field that backs up against the San Bernardino Mountains is a prized educational tool and sprouts plants that are part of a rare habitat known as coastal sage scrub.
The field is not just an outdoor lab for biology, geology and botany classes, within steps of most classrooms; it is a priceless commodity for most campuses because it means students don't have to be bused somewhere to study the natural world.
"This is really a jewel; this is why I came here," said Kimberlyn Williams, an associate biology professor.
Now the field sits under a massive mound of dirt -- up to 15 feet high in places and scattered across a couple acres.
Cal State San Bernardino officials have halted construction of a road along the northern edge of the campus, taken action against university employees supervising the project, and issued an e-mail to the campus saying the university "should have done a better job to prevent this."
Work continues on the parking structures.
David DeMauro, vice president of finance and administration, said that since the mound was already on the field, "it made no economic sense" to move the dirt, which is not causing further damage to the habitat.
He said campus officials would work with an environmental consultant to determine which measures might be taken to offset any damage caused by the dumping. Additionally, he said, President Al Karnig will appoint faculty, students and staff to a committee to look at the undeveloped acreage at the northern part of the campus and whether some of it should be designated as preserve.
In the e-mail to the campus, DeMauro said the incident should not have happened.
"Quite frankly, that embarrasses me," DeMauro said later by phone. "We should supervise these contractors."
The conflict highlights the tension between the campus' plans for growth and its unusual location in the foothills and with so much undeveloped land. DeMauro said about 40 percent of the 430-acre campus has not been developed. The university has about 14,000 students and plans eventually to expand to about 20,000 students. The amount of available land, however, means the university could accommodate 35,000 students, DeMauro said.
"We need to meet both the needs of our faculty, students and staff as well as look at what is needed for future growth of the university," DeMauro said. "Then the question becomes how do you use the land?"
In the past few years, the fields in the northern part of campus have been used as a land lab for many science classes. But they have been chipped away by a soccer field and plans to build a road and more parking. A $51 million College of Education is under construction nearby.
Faculty members said while they knew about the construction activity, the mound of dirt was a surprise when it appeared last week atop the outdoor lab.
"We had no warning," said Joan Fryxell, a geological science professor.
Even if the dirt is removed from the field, Fryxell said, the damage may already be done to the buckwheat and sage plants that grow there.
"You can't just take the dirt off," she said. "The plants are crushed, the soil is compacted, so there will be some restoration necessary to make it functionally what it was before they put the dirt on it."
Members of the local Audubon Society are also watching the situation because of the rarity of coastal sage scrub and its potential as habitat for two federally protected species: the San Bernardino kangaroo rat and the coastal California gnatcatcher, a tiny songbird.
Federal wildlife officials designated the field and nearby foothills as critical habitat for the gnatcatcher in 2000, but projects on the land are not scrutinized by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service unless they require a federal permit, said agency spokeswoman Jane Hendron.
And while the California Department of Fish and Game signed off on the construction plans in 2004, officials didn't return phone calls to say what, if anything, the agency would do about the mound.
Dave Goodward, the San Bernardino Valley Audubon Society's conservation chairman, said the group is concerned that there is only a narrow band remaining of the sage scrub, known as riversidean, that sits along the base of the mountains. Any patches that remain, he said, are key for wildlife as nesting grounds and as a corridor so they can move about.
"In San Bernardino County, there aren't very many gnatcatchers left and they are very few and scattered around," he said. "The only way that species is going to rebound is if there's habitat available for it to occupy; it's that simple."
Goodward said he sympathizes with the university because there's a lot of pressure to expand.
"That campus is really kind of boxed in," he said. "But on the other hand, you want a public institution of that caliber to be responsible for what they're doing environmentally."
Goodward estimates that 25 acres of sage scrub has been lost to development on the campus in the past couple years.
Students also prize the fields for hands-on teaching and a campus respite.
"I was at San Francisco State, and you were surrounded by malls and houses, and it's not the same here. You have the mountains right behind you here," said Alondra Blandon, a graduate student in environmental education and vice president of the Green Earth Club on campus.
"It's nice for hands-on learning to be out there and see what the real flower looks like and not just in a book," she said.
Blandon was among students who collected 900 signatures last fall in an effort to move the planned road by the parking structure so it wouldn't encroach as much on the outdoor lab area.
"They agreed to change it, not as much as we would have liked, but some change is better than nothing," she said. "Now, they're putting stuff where they shouldn't."