Local & State News
Posted at 12:08 a.m. PDT Thursday, July 19, 2001
Historic purchase of bay salt ponds gains momentum
BY [61]PAUL ROGERS
Mercury News
A historic deal to restore thousands of acres of salt ponds ringing
the South Bay shoreline to wetland conditions not seen since the gold
rush suddenly is gaining steam after being stalled for months because
of a lack of funding.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., is proposing a compromise in which
Cargill would sell 13,000 to 15,000 acres of industrial salt ponds it
operates in the South Bay to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for
roughly $100 million, the Mercury News has learned. The land would be
added to the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge.
Feinstein also has reserved a line in the Department of Interior's
2002 budget in which funding could be inserted in the coming weeks. As
a member of the conference committee that will decide that budget, she
holds significant power to close a deal.
Since last year, Cargill has offered to sell about 19,000 acres of
salt ponds -- which stretch 20 miles along the bay's shoreline from
Redwood City, past Alviso to Fremont -- to the government for more
than $300 million. Last fall, it obtained an appraisal backing up that
figure.
But the Minneapolis-based agribusiness giant said Wednesday it might
be willing to sell fewer acres for less if the terms are right.
Company optimistic
``We've worked on this for four years,'' said Lori Johnson, a
spokeswoman for Cargill in Newark. ``I hope with Sen. Feinstein's
leadership something will come together, and if not for all of it, for
the vast majority of what people hope can be accomplished.''
If successful, the deal could mark a landmark achievement for
environmental restoration in the United States. If vast stretches of
industrial salt ponds and other Cargill property were restored to
tidal marshlands, large sections of San Francisco Bay's southern
shoreline -- now ringed by Silicon Valley's hustle and bustle -- could
see re-creation of much of the habitat for birds, fish and other
wildlife that existed 150 years ago.
Feinstein wants the federal and state governments and Bay Area
charitable foundations to divide the cost. This week her staff
approached the David and Lucile Packard Foundation in Los Altos.
``Sen. Feinstein would be interested in a public-private partnership
to restore the Cargill wetlands,'' said Howard Gantman, a spokesman
for Feinstein. ``The restoration would possibly be the largest such
restoration in our state's history.''
Gantman declined to discuss details of the proposal, which he said is
still being crafted.
But several sources familiar with discussions said that to bring the
costs down and make the deal more palatable to the Bush
administration, Feinstein is proposing that some portions of the
bay-front lands previously on the table not be purchased.
Excluded land
Those lands would include salt crystallizer beds and parking lots near
Cargill's Redwood City plant. They could potentially be developed and
would be worth as much as $1 million an acre.
Instead, Feinstein's plan would involve the government buying perhaps
13,000 to 15,000 acres or more of marsh and salt ponds, the sources
said. Large sections of that land in all probability could not be
developed under the Clean Water Act. Similar bay wetlands have sold
for $5,000 to $20,000 an acre in recent years.
``In theory we'd like it all, but I think there are conversations now
about pieces,'' said Debbie Drake, director of the National Audubon
Society's bay restoration efforts.
``Some of that land is developable,'' she said. ``That's where most of
the value lies. If those pieces are peeled off, we would consider
that.''
Other environmentalists agreed.
``If for a variety of reasons, it is necessary to look at something
less than the entire area than was offered in the first place, let's
look at it,'' said Marc Holmes, director of wetlands restoration for
the Bay Institute in San Rafael.
Holmes and other environmental leaders stressed, however, that they
would fight any attempts to link funding for the salt ponds to
approval of new runways on bay fill at San Francisco International
Airport. The airport has run into controversy after proposing to build
runways two miles into the bay to reduce flight delays.
The airport's environmental studies are due next year, and San
Francisco voters will address the issue in a referendum.
Cargill against link
Cargill's Johnson also said her company opposes linking a wetlands
deal to the runway issue.
A $100 million Cargill deal would rank second to the 1998 Headwaters
Forest purchase as the costliest public land acquisition in Northern
California history.
It was Feinstein who brokered the Headwaters deal, in which the
government paid $380 million for 7,500 acres of old-growth redwood
forest in Humboldt County. As the Cargill deal has stalled, she has
stepped forward again, seeking a compromise to save it.
After years of squabbling, environmental groups and Cargill reached
agreement that the sale of the salt ponds would be a good idea. Yet
despite requests by Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Palo Alto, the Bush
administration included no funding for the deal in this year's budget.
Similarly, the House of Representatives also offered no money.
Last year, Congress approved $8 million, and the state approved $25
million toward a Cargill buyout.
Michael Mantell, a spokesman for the Packard Foundation, said his
organization is studying the talks closely.
``We're just starting to look at it,'' he said. ``Sen. Feinstein
approached our staff within the past week.
We think there is interesting potential. But we need time to
understand it and study it.''
For three years, the Packard Foundation has donated more than $150
million in loans and grants to government and non-profit groups,
preserving more than 400,000 acres in California.
_________________________________________________________________
Contact Paul Rogers at [62]progers@sjmercury.com or (408) 920-5045.
[spacer.gif]
[63]Return to top [64]This image allows you to access site resources
© 2001 The Mercury News. The information you receive online from
The Mercury News is protected by the copyright laws of the United
States. The copyright laws prohibit any copying, redistributing,
retransmitting, or repurposing of any copyright-protected material.
[65]Mercury News privacy policy
|
