RARE-ANIMAL PLAN BREEDS MANY CRITICS PROPOSAL MAY END IN COURT.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Staff Writer

PALMDALE - Eleven years in the making, a proposal that fills two volumes 4 inches thick lays out the federal government's plan for saving the desert tortoise and the Mohave ground squirrel from extinction.

Facing competing demands from desert landowners, off-roaders, utility companies, ranchers and environmental groups, the Bureau of Land Management's proposed West Mojave Plan is already drawing criticism from all directions.

``This is almost certainly going to open up a new round of lawsuits,'' said Daniel Patterson of the environmental group Center for Biological Diversity, which has sued the federal government repeatedly over saving endangered wildlife.

The largest habitat conservation plan ever developed in the United States, the West Mojave Plan encompasses 9.3 million acres from Lancaster and Palmdale to Twentynine Palms and out into San Bernardino and Inyo counties.

Building on earlier studies and government wildlife laws, the plan's creation was launched by a 1992 agreement among the Bureau of Land Management, state and federal wildlife officials and more than a dozen desert cities and counties.

The main purpose is to protect the desert tortoise, a slow-moving, long- lived creature decimated by a respiratory disease and such threats as ravens and Army tanks, and the Mohave ground squirrel, a seldom-seen rodent that spends much of its time underground.

But the plan also proposes measures to protect more than 100 other desert animals, reptiles, birds and plants. It includes regulating well-water pumping in the Mojave River basin, protecting the Mojave River vole and adding insulation or perches on electric poles to protect ferruginous hawks.

The environmental impact report draft released last month by the BLM actually lays out seven alternatives, such as maintaining the status quo or buying up more private land and barring more land to off-roaders and cattle.

It is so big and complex that local officials and environmental groups said last week they are still analyzing it to see what the effects could be.

A key point, however, in what the BLM calls its preferred alternative is continuing to allow new homes or businesses to be built in such areas as Palmdale, Lancaster and California City in exchange for developers paying fees to enlarge wildlife preserves in remote regions.

In most areas outside critical tortoise habitat, developers would have to pay to buy a half-acre or an acre of land of preserve - remote and thus relatively inexpensive - for every acre they build on, the proposal says.

It estimates the cost for a 10-acre subdivision at $3,850 to $7,700 - but says that is a great decrease from the present situation, where each proposed development is evaluated separately and the cost of biological studies and buying land could be $29,000 to $90,000.

While other aspects of the plan are drawing criticism, local city officials say the proposal is a big improvement. Right now, they say, landowners may not know until the end of sometimes drawn-out negotiations and studies with wildlife officials how much their cost will be.

``It does create some real headaches,'' Brian Ludicke, Lancaster Community Development director, said of the present situation. Under the proposal for set fees, he said, ``You don't have to do a bunch of biological studies. You don't have to go through a lot of hoops you have to jump through.''

In California City, for example, where the city is helping Hyundai build an automotive test track, the city was first told it had to buy an acre of preserve for every acre used for the test track, City Manager Jack Stewart said.

But later the amount jumped to 5 acres for every acre developed, then down to 3 acres, and finally 1 acre, he said.

The present arrangement, Stewart said, leaves landowners open to ``being nickled-and-dimed to death by a half-dozen different agencies and a hundred different environmental groups.''

On the other hand, environmental groups say the BLM's preferred alternative does not do enough, particularly to save the desert tortoise, and does not even incorporate all the federal government's existing tortoise recovery plan.

While off-roaders say the proposal cuts off too much of the desert from humans other than hardy backpackers, environmentalists say it allows too much off-roading - as well as cattle grazing - in tortoise habitat. In all the alternatives, more land is allowed to be developed than would be set aside as preserves.

``We have serious concerns,'' said Michael Connor, executive director of the Desert Tortoise Preserve Committee.

Before adopting the plan, the federal government is taking comments from the public through Sept. 13. Public meetings are scheduled this month in several desert communities, including one at 6 p.m. July 24 at Palmdale City Hall, 38300 Sierra Highway, Palmdale.

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WEST MOJAVE PLAN