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For Immediate Release, August 4, 2009

Contact: Adam Keats, (415) 632-5304, (415) 845-2509 (cell)

Tejon Ranch to Release Secret Condor Documents At Long Last
Meanwhile, Massive Development Plans Move Forward and Company's Lawsuit
Against Condor Protection Remains Active

LOS ANGELES— The Tejon Ranch Company announced yesterday that it would seek to lift the protective order it had filed in its own lawsuit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over the reintroduction of the California condor. The announcement comes after years of effort by the Center for Biological Diversity to obtain the secret documents and just days before the expected filing by the Center of its own lawsuit demanding the release of the documents.

The request also comes nearly a month after the Fish and Wildlife Service stopped accepting comments on the draft habitat conservation plan that is at the heart of Tejon’s lawsuit, making the documents all but worthless to the public for use in contributing to the agency’s deliberations. The draft plan would allow Tejon to harm the California condor and destroy thousands of acres of designated critical habitat for the endangered bird.

“Tejon Ranch’s timing is remarkably convenient,” said Adam Keats, urban wildlands program director at the Center. “For seven years straight, the corporation has prevented these documents from seeing the light of day. Only now, after the door has been slammed shut on the public process, does it seek to release them to the public. But the lawsuit Tejon filed to prevent the successful reintroduction of the California condor remains active, poised like a gun to the head of the agency that’s reviewing the company’s application.”

On June 11, 2009, the Center informed the Fish and Wildlife Service that its continued withholding of the documents was a violation of the Endangered Species Act, and that the Center would file suit in 60 days to halt the review process for the draft plan. The Endangered Species Act requires that “information received by the [Fish and Wildlife Service] as a part of any application [for a “take permit,” which allows the harming, harassing, or killing of protected species] shall be available to the public as a matter of public record at every stage of the proceeding.”

“As Tejon admits today, its lawsuit against the Fish and Wildlife Service led directly to the proposed habitat conservation plan,” said Adam Keats. “But getting a take permit from the federal government can’t happen with some back-room deal made to settle a lawsuit — it’s a serious undertaking that the law requires the public be invited to at every stage.”

The Fish and Wildlife Service is currently reviewing an application by Tejon Ranch for a habitat conservation plan and “incidental take permit” for 26 endangered, threatened, or rare species on Tejon Ranch. The permits are essential to Tejon’s plans to develop Tejon Mountain Village, the controversial luxury-home subdivision planned for the heart of designated critical habitat for the California condor.

In 1997, just as officials with the Condor Recovery Team were starting to release captive-reared California condors to the wild, Tejon Ranch sued the Fish and Wildlife Service to curtail the condor recovery program and relegate the condors to a special status without protection under the Endangered Species Act. Tejon’s legal arguments, although arguably specious and at best very weak, were not seriously opposed by the government, which instead settled the case for what is believed to be a sweetheart deal that has resulted in the current plan and take-permit application.

In 1999, at Tejon’s request, the entire record for the lawsuit was sealed by court order and the case indefinitely stayed, leaving the case (and the order) active for the past 10 years. The terms of the order are not limited to just court-filed documents, though, as it includes all documents “related” to the settlement in any way, apparently including documents related to subject of the settlement: the proposed plan, condors, and Tejon’s development plans. The Service has since demonstrated its willingness to give this language as expansive a definition as possible.

Preserving Tejon Ranch as a new national or state park would protect a bounty of native plant and animal communities, cultural and historic features, and scenic vistas. See http://www.savetejonranch.org.