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 n a case that is gaining statewide and national attention,
the San Diego Superior Court has permitted the filing of two
amicus briefs in support of Save Our Forest & Ranchlands'
(SOFAR) lawsuit against San Diego County's proposal (GPA 96-03)
to replan and rezone approximately 200,000 acres of back-country
ranchlands.
 One
of the amicus, or "friend of the court," briefs was
filed by the Office of the Attorney General of the State of California;
the second was filed by a coalition of nine environmental groups
concerned about San Diego's future. SOFAR has argued that, despite
the passage of nearly four years since the court first ordered
it do so, the county has failed to comply with the California
Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) in approving the Environmental
Impact Report (EIR) for GPA 96-03. In asking the court to halt
the project, SOFAR charged that "if allowed to stand, the
county's approach would make a mockery not only of CEQA's core
procedural requirements for good faith effort at full disclosure
of environmental impacts, but also of CEQA's fundamental substantive
requirement to avoid those impacts whenever feasible."
The Office
of the Attorney General of the State of California, in its amicus
brief, strongly agreed with SOFAR: "The EIR fails to provide
even the most minimal information about the specific impacts
of GPA 96-03 on sensitive wildlife species." This approach,
the brief added, "would eliminate a CEQA analysis when a
project is expected to have significant environmental impacts"
and thereby "turn CEQA on its head."
The Attorney
General's Office also criticized the EIR for its failure to properly
analyze measures that could have mitigated or avoided the adverse
impacts of the project. Other agricultural counties have adopted
measures to avoid such impacts, as SOFAR had told the County,
and "the County itself had information and policies that
enable it to do the same." The decision "to disregard
and dismiss [these] feasible mitigation measures," the brief
concluded, violates "CEQA's requirement to 'mitigate or
avoid significant effects on the environment whenever it is
feasible to do so.'"
The Office
of the Attorney General repeatedly emphasized the statewide importance
of this case, noting that "the potential clearing and grading
of vast amounts of natural habitat in San Diego County will impair
or destroy the state's biological resources, damaging habitats
utilized by numerous sensitive plant and animal species."
The adverse "precedents set by the inadequate environmental
review conducted for the proposed project," the brief added,
"could have enormous impact on the protection of natural
habitats."
The second
amicus brief, authored by Professor Daniel P. Selmi, was filed
on behalf of a coalition of nine environmental groups, including
California Native Plant Society, California Oaks Foundation,
Center for Biological Diversity, Environmental Health Coalition,
Mountain Defense League, San Diego Audubon Society, San Diego
BayKeeper, Sierra Club, and Surfrider Foundation. These groups,
which include both statewide and local organizations concerned
with San Diego County's future, charged that the County "has
fundamentally misconceived its responsibilities under the California
Environmental Quality Act." The groups argued that the County
had not engaged in a "good faith effort" to gather
all relevant information concerning the general plan's significant
impacts on biological and plant resources. For example, the County
"made no effort to determine the project's actual effects"
on endangered species, resulting in an "utter lack of detail"
concerning those effects.
The environmental
groups also accused the county of refusing to examine mitigation
measures that would lessen the project's significant environmental
impacts. The groups claimed that the county had illegally determined
that all mitigation measures were, per se, infeasible because
they allegedly would interfere with the "purpose" of
the project. By doing so, declared the groups, the county had
illegally used this narrowly defined purpose "as a vehicle
for avoiding the county's legal obligation to identify and evaluate
an array of mitigation measures that will eliminate or reduce
the project's significant impacts." Finally, the groups
requested the court to overturn the county's decision because
the county "has resisted full compliance with CEQA from
the beginning of its effort to approve this project." 
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