By Clark Mason
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Article published - July 16, 2005
Sonoma County officials Friday halted work at three wetlands creation sites, saying the property owners failed to obtain an environmental review to ensure no rare plants or animals were harmed.
The parcels, which total almost 100 acres, are on vacant pieces of land between Santa Rosa and Rohnert Park. The property is planned for conversion to wetlands to offset the loss of wetlands from construction projects elsewhere.
Mary Jo Yung, engineering division manager for the county Planning Department, said the project applicant was in clear violation of county regulations.
"They knew they should be getting a permit because they came in to get one and didn't get it. They started grading anyway," she said.
The biggest site involves 59 acres on the northern edge of Rohnert Park, just east of Highway 101, in a designated greenbelt. Work has been under way there for the past two weeks with heavy equipment clearing an old hay and barley field.
While the land has been disked in the past for farming operations, county officials said they wanted to avoid the potential destruction of any rare species in the process of creating wetlands.
"We'd hate to have some endangered species or plant destroyed in the name of a wetlands mitigation bank. You might wipe out a (Sebastopol) meadowfoam to save a shrimp," said Dave Hardy, a supervising county planner.
He said some of the land is also in the range of the endangered California tiger salamander, although whether any of the elusive amphibians are present on the parcels is uncertain.
County officials said that on May 4, an application was made - but not approved - to begin grading on the multiple parcels for the purpose of turning them into wetlands mitigation "banks."
Shares in such potentially lucrative banks are sold to developers, who are then allowed to proceed with projects that destroy wetlands elsewhere.
County officials said they informed the applicant, Charles Trabolsi, a Santa Rosa civil engineer, that an environmental review by a biologist would be needed before a grading permit could be issued to begin work.
But work began anyway without the proper permits, according to county officials, who are now attempting to sort out the responsible property owners.
Clem Carinalli, a Santa Rosa financier and one of the largest property owners in Sonoma County, is listed as the owner for the 59 acres off Highway 101 and Santa Rosa Avenue.
But Carinalli said Friday he sold the property a few months ago to the "Horn Mitigation bank" and Trabolsi, of TDG Consulting Civil Engineers.
Trabolsi was the applicant for grading permits on all three sites, although county records list various others as owners of the land.
Trabolsi did not return a call left Friday on his office answering machine.
Bill Olmo, the general manager for Fedco, the company that is doing the grading for TDG Consulting at the Santa Rosa Avenue site, said he usually gets a copy of the permit from the property owner or the owner's representative.
After checking Friday, he acknowledged county officials could be correct because "we didn't have anything in our file."
Olmo said he notified neighbors before work began on the wetlands project next to the "F" section of Rohnert Park. Adjacent residents tend to welcome such wetlands banks, as opposed to new home construction, he said.
"They're glad you're not paving paradise. They like the garbage gone and the wildlife and ducks out there."
The work that was stopped Friday is on land adjacent to 18 acres that the city of Rohnert Park bought for $475,000 last year, also with the intention of developing a wetlands mitigation bank. But faced with uncertainty over how much wetlands the parcel will support, as well as a daunting regulatory process involving state and federal agencies, Rohnert Park officials are considering selling the land for someone else to go forward with the project.
Wetlands banks can be highly lucrative, with developers paying up to $450,000 per acre to buy in. But experts say it can take years to get the needed governmental approvals, and it is a risky, convoluted and expensive process.
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