Home project may be saved by loophole.

While doing a routine land survey in May in the Ahmanson Ranch tract, developers stumbled onto quite a discovery: 5,000 to 10,000 San Fernando Valley spineflowers.

Not that it's unusual to find wildflowers in Ventura County's open hillsides. But these particular flowers were not supposed to be there. In fact, the small spiny plants with miniscule flowers weren't supposed to he anywhere; the spineflower was believed to have disappeared in the 1940s.

The discovery was immediately seized upon by environmentalists as reason to halt the controversial Ahmanson Ranch project, a 3,000-home development that has pitted Ventura County officials against officials in neighboring L.A. County.

But the environmental groups may have little ammunition to use against the developers because of an ironic loophole in state and federal law: While endangered plants enjoy state and federal protection, extinct ones do not.

"Under current law, the plant is not considered endangered because it is on an extinct list," said Mary Meyer, plant ecologist for the California Fish and Game Department. "Under the endangered listing, the developer would have to get a permit for the area approved by Fish anti Game."

Officials at Save Open Space Santa Monica Mountains, an environmental group that has fought the Ahmanson development for a decade, said they will push for a new environmental impact report and file as many as five new lawsuits as a result of the discovery of the spineflower - as well as a group of endangered frogs on the property. The group has already filed three lawsuits against the project, two of which have been dismissed.

"I think it's just the tip of the iceberg," said Vince Curtis, assistant director of Save Open Space. "I'm not surprised those (species) were found, I'm surprised they weren't found before."

But officials with Washington Mutual Inc., which inherited the Ahmanson Ranch development last scar when it bought H.F. Ahmanson & Co. said that while the discovery, has slowed things down as developers work to figure out their legal and ethical responsibilities, it will not stop the project.

"This has been a long time in the making," said Washington Mutual spokesman Adrian Rodriguez. "I don't want to give the impression that things are coming to a grinding halt. We're moving forward with the permit process."

State and federal conservation officials agree that Washington Mutual is not legally obligated to move, build around, or perform other mitigation measures related to the spineflowers because the plant is not on any endangered species list. Nonetheless, Rodriguez says Washington Mutual officials will work with federal agencies to protect the plants.

"The ecologically responsible thing to do as an institution is to reintroduce the plant into society." he said. "In a sense, we're working under the same constraints (as if it were endangered). We will present it in a report to show that we have adequate mitigation plans."

The discovery of an extinct plant, while rare, is not unheard of. "Once in awhile they show up," Meyer said. "That plant's probably been there all this time."

A similar situation arose in 1997, when biologists from U.S. Fish and Wildlife discovered the marsh milk-vetch plant on a former Oxnard oil sludge dump where developers are planning a housing project.

Although the plant was nol legally protected, like the spineflower, it touched off a long fight by environmentalists who are trying to get it on the state's endangered species list. It is unlikely to win such a listing until next year. "This process is slow," said David Magney, an environmental consultant and chair of the Ventura chapter of the California Native Plant Society, who petitioned to get the plant listed.

While environmental groups wait for the marsh milk-vetch plant to be listed, developer Ron Smith is working with state and local officials to either move the plant or develop around it. Because Smith is on a toxic site, and the plant was discovered early in the approval process, he faces more constraints than Washington Mutual does on its Ahmanson Ranch project.

Even with endangered status, plants are not given the same level of protection as endangered animal species.

"Plants are treated slightly differently." said Jane Hendron, spokeswoman for the Ventura County region of U.S. Fish and Wildlife. "They have to comply with state law, but private property owners (under federal law) are not prohibited from moving them."

Meyer said it's not unusual for an extinct plant to be missed in an initial environmental impact report. For one thing, the original EIR for Ahmanson Ranch was done in 1989, when the area was in a drought, making it possible that the plant didn't bloom that year. Or it simply could have been missed; an EIR is a survey of an area rather than a study of every, inch of land.

Meyer, who reviewed the 1989 EIR, said there are probably mitigation steps that can be taken to allow development to continue without harming the plant.

But further complicating the issue is the fact that the hillside where the flowers were found is slated for some of the most intense housing development. The plants were discovered on Laskey Mesa, where plans call for a country club and 650 homes.

A bigger problem for developers is the four juvenile red-legged frogs found on the land, which tire listed as threatened by the federal government.

Meyer said the frogs arc extremely sensitive to water quality, and the two planned golf courses for the development could hurt that quality. Fish and Game has permit authority over streams that run through the property.

The U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife. which also regulates the frogs, is in talks with Washington Mutual and has plans to meet with the developer in the coming months, Hendron said.

The debate over Ahmanson Ranch, the proposed $1 billion "mini-city" in southeastern Ventura County, began in the late 1980s. Development plans call for more than 3,000 homes, two golf courses, and a 300-room hotel. L.A. County objects to the project because of its presumed traffic impacts.

Developers still hope to break ground on the first homes in late 2001. For now, the process has been slowed as scientists look for other spineflower plants on the land and as they plant spineflower seeds in other areas not slated for development.

For botanists and plant enthusiasts, that's good news. "Botanists are really happy to hear an extinct plant is not extinct," Meyer said. "This is really cool."