PANEL APPROVES EXPANSION OF BAY AREA REFUGE.

Byline: Jane Kay San Francisco Examiner 

A state wildlife board has voted to buy one of the few remaining large undeveloped tracts of shoreline south of the San Mateo Bridge to expand the San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge.

The three-member Wildlife Conservation Board voted unanimously Thursday to buy the 835-acre Baumberg tract for $12.4 million from Cargill Inc. in Hayward.

Once proposed for a Shorelands racetrack, theme park and industrial zone in the 1980s, the edge of the Bay is now home to migrating and resident ducks and geese. The imperiled California clapper rail, black rail, western snowy plover and salt marsh harvest mouse live there.

"We not only stop development but enhance the wetland resources," said Georgia Lipphardt, a senior land appraiser. "There are a lot of little pieces around the Bay, but this is a large block."

The board, concerned about opposition from the city of Hayward and adjacent landowners, said it wanted to move quickly to nail down the deal before the tract was whittled away by development.

"It's the only parcel of its size with a willing seller" that would result in returning a chunk of tidal wetland, about 10 percent, to the Bay, Lipphardt said.

At the meeting in Sacramento, environmentalists, hunters and administrators of the East Bay Regional Parks District favored immediate acquisition.

But Hayward officials argued to delay the vote, saying it would interfere with a city plan to study developing up to a fourth of the parcel.

The wildlife conservation board will provide $6.9 million, using funds from Proposition 70, the California Wildlife, Coastal and Parkland Conservation Act of 1988.

San Jose will contribute $5.9 million, and Fremont and Milpitas $283,126 to replace habitat harmed by construction projects. The East Bay Regional Parks will add $900,000.

About $1.5 million will be set aside for restoring marshes on the tract, which contains inactive diked ponds used by Leslie Salt from 1936 until 1978. The company sold the land to Cargill, one of the largest companies in the United States.

The California clapper rail, whose numbers have dwindled to about 600 in the world, depend on the tidal marsh to survive, biologists say.

The remaining 200 to 300 acres will be restored to seasonal wetlands, which fill with freshwater ponds during the rains. They attract the plovers, which live in pickle weed during the dry season. Brine shrimp, which are eaten by birds and ducks, hatch in the ponds.

Besides providing wildlife habitat, the wetlands also control flooding, prevent erosion and filter out pollutants running off city streets and farmlands, according to scientists.

One disappointment, said environmentalist Florence LaRiviere, is that spending so much money on the Baumberg tract may make it harder to purchase Bair Island from Kumagai Gumi Land Co. The 1,500-acre island near Redwood City is considered the most important piece of private land to acquire for the wildlife refuge.