Reacting to disclosures that Newhall Land & Farming destroyed endangered plants on its property, environmental activists and some planners are calling for restrictions on confidentiality agreements that prevent environmental consultants from sharing information with the public.
The existence of suspected fields of San Fernando Valley spineflowers, an endangered plant that lives on property that Newhall Land wants to use for housing, was not revealed for two years after the flowers were discovered. That was because the consulting botanists who located them were required by Newhall Land to sign a confidentiality agreement -- an increasingly common legal practice that critics contend violates the spirit of state environmental laws.
Such agreements are made possible by policies in Los Angeles County and some other jurisdictions that allow developers to select consultants to write environmental impact reports. The county officials say that having the county directly control the consultants would be too cumbersome.
But some critics and planning experts say that allowing developers to guide the writers of environmental impact reports -- rather than insisting they work directly for the county -- essentially lets builders police themselves.
Attorney Jan Chatten-Brown wants state lawmakers to bar the practice but says there has been little interest in Sacramento. "People have said, 'Where are the horror stories?' " she said. "Well, here it is!"
In May of 2000, the state Department of Fish and Game recommended that Newhall Land search its 12,000 acres for the spineflower, which had been believed extinct until it was rediscovered on another development site in 1999.
The developer retained an environmental consultant to look for the plants. The consultants found one stand of spineflowers, then located several other fields spread throughout areas slated for high-density housing. But Newhall Land did not send the samples from the other fields to labs to confirm they were the protected plant. Instead, the developer ordered its consultants to stop surveying and reminded them they had signed a confidentiality agreement, court records and company officials say.
The next year, Fish and Game officers began investigating reports that Newhall Land was underreporting and destroying spineflowers on its site. The investigation was stymied when the biologists who discovered the tiny plants refused to give officials any details of their findings, citing the confidentiality statements they had signed with the company, according to court records.
