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Conflicting Regulations
Create Waste, Confusion
The Fish and Game Department
is rightly concerned with habitat restoration when work is finished at a
construction site. Regulations specify that revegetation seeding of the site
shall take place between September 15th and October 15th, even if construction
is completed months before. Bureaucratic wisdom (A conflict of
terms?) is applied to habitat restoration in a wholly arbitrary way without
apparent consideration for the way nature works. Such a seeding schedule might
be appropriate for level agricultural land, with deep topsoil, that can be
prepared for seeding timed to normal rainfall. For newly graded land that is
more akin to the surface of the moon, such an order makes little sense and is
probably doomed to failure. 
Location of the first bridge was given careful consideration by authorities. "Build it over the river," they said.
Imagine that the building contractor
has completed work in mid July. It makes little sense to wait until September
before trying to establish plant cover. In the intervening three months what
surface soil there is can be lost to wind erosion, drawing the attention of the
air quality management authorities who are most interested in all the dust
coming from the property. A contractor could find himself
surrounded by local, state and federal agencies who all have an interest in his
project. Each may have authority to prevent the work or to stop it along the
way. While few would argue against preserving our environment since each of us
is affected, a Gordian knot can result from conflicting requirements.
Regulations may overlap in intention but disagree in details or methods
available to achieve compliance.
Many Bridges to Cross An example of these sometimes competing
regulations can be found in a Ventura County highway project. The Santa Clara
River, dividing the cities of Ventura and Oxnard, is bridged by Highway 101 and
is a bottleneck for north-south traffic. The bridge must be widened and the ramp
approaches redesigned. In addition to coordination between the
two riverside cities, Caltrans, and the Southern Pacific Railroad (whose nearby
railroad bridge will be affected by the work), a minimum of six other agencies
have an interest in the project.
The Players
The California Department of Fish and
Game has to be satisfied in how the stream bed will be altered; the U. S. Army
Corps of Engineers is concerned with possible loss of wetlands; the Regional
Water Quality Control Board is (naturally) concerned how the bridge will affect
the quality of the water that flows under it to the ocean outflow point a few
miles away and whether aquifers will be affected by the bridge. The Flood
Control District will be asked for a floodplain permit and the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service will examine possible loss of wetlands and biological
resources. The Environmental Protection Agency will also look at possible loss
of wetlands and biological resources, water and air quality in case any other
agency missed anything. No project of this magnitude would be
able to begin without a half-dozen studies:
- Natural Environment Study and Wetlands Delineation
- Floodplain Evaluation
- Water Quality Study
- Relocation Impact Report
- Archaeological and Historic Resources (identification and protection of cultural resources)
- Initial Site Assessment (storage and generation of hazardous materials and waste).
Then there will have to be state and
federal reviews of the entire project to consider construction and permanent
impact on wetlands, riparian vegetation, wildlife habitat and wildlife migration
corridors (fish swim under the bridge). We won't even get into the
socioeconomic, visual, and traffic circulation impacts during and after
construction. Don't even think about the noise impacts that will result from the
increased traffic flow. And just forget that the railroad trestle, running
parallel to the bridge, that was built around the turn of the century, is
potentially eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.
Final Analysis
The controlling forces in Washington
promise to downsize and consolidate government agencies. Some question whether
they will go too far, whether advances made to protect the environment will be
lost. Regardless of what Washington and Sacramento do, the overriding
consideration has to be striking a balance of regulation that allows progress
and profit for business and people with reasonable, achievable
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