Judge halts project near site of bald eagle nest
Conservationists look to buy land from developer
The 50-house Moon Camp development slated for the community of Fawnskin overlooking Big Bear Lake is on hold under a legal challenge as conservationists work to find a way to buy the land from the developer.
A San Bernardino County Superior Court judge who has ruled partly in favor of a lawsuit against the development near a bald eagle nest has prohibited work at the site and ordered portions of the project's environmental document be voided and revised.
In January, Judge David Cohn said the petition by the Friends of Big Bear Valley, the San Bernardino Valley Audubon Society and the Center for Biological Diversity to block development was granted on two narrow grounds:
“First, Respondents’ findings regarding mitigation measures for environmental impacts to a threatened plant species — the ashygray Indian paintbrush — are unsupported by substantial evidence,” Cohn wrote. “Second, the Environmental Impact Report fails as an informational document regarding the Project’s impacts on wildfire evacuation risks.”
On April 25, Cohn ordered no work be done at the site until the revised EIR is properly approved.
In 2020, the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors approved the project despite the environmental report admitting the project would have significant and unavoidable impacts on nesting eagles who perch in nine trees on the project site. A webcam and related social media posts on the nest draw tens of thousands of viewers every nesting season.
San Bernardino County spokesman David Wert said in an email that rulings such as Cohn’s do not directly impact the county, even though it is named as a defendant along with the Board of Supervisors and developer RCK Properties Inc.
“The county’s only role or involvement with a proposed development is ensuring [the applicants] comply with all applicable laws,” Wert wrote. “Whether and how to respond and proceed will depend on the project applicant’s desire to continue with the project in light of the scope of the court’s order.”
Sandy Steers, executive director of the Friends of Big Bear Valley, one of the plaintiffs in the case, said the court fight continues, and her group has filed for reconsideration, along with the other plaintiffs, the San Bernardino Valley Audubon Society and the Center for Biological Diversity.
The motion, filed Thursday, asks the court to set aside the county’s approval of the project and provide more clarity, said Ileene Anderson with the Center for Biological Diversity. “We still believe there are additional defects in the environmental review and hope the court takes the opportunity to review these as laid out in our new motion,” Anderson said in an email.
On top of that, Steers’ group is working to have the land purchased from the developer and preserved.
“We’ve been pushing for that,” she said over the phone, “and have an agreement in principle that at least if we can get the funding, that the owners would be open to the idea of selling for conservation.”
At the Big Bear Lake City Council meeting Monday, Steers told officials she had been alerted recently that the parcel is one of 25 selected by the U.S. Forest Service that could be purchased with federal Land and Water Conservation Fund money.
Senators would need to put the funding request on the budget, and to do so they want to see local support for the proposal, Steers said at the meeting.
The council voted unanimously to send a letter of support.
If funding is secured and the purchase goes through, it will mean the eagles will be much more likely to continue nesting in the area, Steers said.
“If there was all kinds of activity going on back there, the chances of them staying in this nest are not hot,” she said.
As for the threatened paintbrush flower, procurement of the land would be “amazing,” she added.
“It’s listed on the federal and the state endangered list, and it only exists in this valley,” Steers said.
The purchase “would be really good at giving it a chance to survive,” Steers said.
Her group will soon ask the public to send in letters of support for the purchase. More information will be provided on the group’s Facebook page and website, friendsofbig bearvalley.org.