by Janet Fairbanks 
San Diego County of Governments

On June 7and 8, the United States Marine Corps hosted the California Biodiversity Council (CBC) Regional Meeting at Camp Pendleton. The base occupies 125,000 acres of northwest San Diego County. Forty-two thousand people live or work on the base, contributing approximately $1.2 billion annually to the local and regional economies.

Camp Pendleton sits in a high growth area—San Diego, Orange and Riverside are three of the fastest growing counties in California. This rapid growth brings developmental pressure and urbanization issues—military noise becomes less tolerable, demand for military lands increases, and competition increases for airspace used for military training. Furthermore, since Southern California is a major "hotspot" for endangered species, expanding environmental legislation and regulations directly impact undeveloped military training areas.

Currently, the base has 15 endangered or threatened species including riparian, upland, and estuarine/beach species. The presence of these species and the requirement to protect their habitats restricts Camp Pendleton’s ability to use the base for military training. Established and proposed critical habitat designation for six endangered species impacts approximately 70,000 acres, over half of the base’s training areas. Ever-increasing restrictions on Marine Corps training space threatens their ability to train, maintain, and deploy combat-ready forces to worldwide national contingencies.

As urbanization continues, cities and counties view Camp Pendleton’s undeveloped training areas as ideal locations for public service infrastructure requirements like nuclear power plants, gas and electric lines, new roads and freeways, rail lines, parks, etc. What appears to be under-utilized land to city and county planners is essential training space to the Marines.

The Santa Margarita River passes through the heart of Camp Pendleton and is one of the last free-flowing rivers in Southern California. One of the most active parts of the base, which includes a large military air station, sits in the flood plain. Seasonal floods have destroyed roads, bridges and crossings, and halted the operation of other critical facilities. History shows a tremendous potential for flood damage due to the Santa Margarita River. A 1993 flood caused over $125 million in damage. To protect infrastructure and equipment, the base constructed a new levee and a bridge designed to withstand a 100-year flood.

The complexity of the project, its costs, environmental impacts, and legal problems challenged the Marines to find alternative solutions to flood control projects. Since upstream activity significantly affects flood risk, the base decided to examine the entire watershed to identify other nonstructural approaches that might be useful to mitigate the occurrence of floods on the base.

Additionally, the Department of Defense contracted with Harvard University Graduate School of Design to study how rapid urban growth in the region between San Diego and Los Angeles might influence the biodiversity of Camp Pendleton. Utah State University, the National Biological Service, the USDA Forest Service, The Nature Conservancy, the Biodiversity Research Consortium, the San Diego Association of Governments, and the Southern California Association of Governments cooperated in the study.

The study was designed to increase understanding of the risks and benefits of the range of alternatives for the Camp Pendleton region and to provide tools and techniques which may be helpful in managing the processes of urbanization and landscape change within the watershed.

The Harvard researchers found that increasing levels of urbanization around the base could increase the magnitude of flood damage. Also, as growth occurs, more habitat will be consumed, leaving the base with an increasing proportion of the remaining threatened and endangered species. The surrounding communities and the military are dependent upon one another economically, environmentally, and socially. This suggests that there needs to be a cooperative effort between the base and the surrounding communities regarding development decisions within the watersheds comprising the base.

Camp Pendleton officials announced that the Department of Defense will be updating the Harvard study. The CBC agreed to participate in the study by updating databases and sharing them with the base. Base officials discussed contacting jurisdictions in the watershed (counties of Orange, Riverside, and San Diego) to coordinate multiple species conservation program implementation activities. The Biodiversity Council will be forming a subcommittee to look at the interagency issues raised at this meeting.

The meeting concluded with a panel presentation on effective watershed approaches to resource management and the protection of biodiversity. They explored ways to coordinate flood control, water supply, and environmental protection. The panel concluded that the planning process for jurisdictions within the watershed needs to be coordinated to ensure ecological values are satisfactorily integrated into regulatory compliance, land use approval, and infrastructure development. The panel explored the feasibility of local watershed groups playing lead roles in managing watershed resources while recognizing the regulatory functions of federal, state, and local agencies.