The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has designated more than 8,000 acres of critical habitat for two endangered pea plants in the St. George area, pleasing environmentalists — yet not upsetting the Utah Department of Transportation, which plans to build a beltway where one of the plants is found.

The plants are the Holmgren milkvetch, found in Washington County, Utah, and Mohave County, Ariz., and the Shivwits milkvetch, found only in Washington County. For the first, 6,289 acres, almost all of it in Utah, was designated as critical; for the Shivwits milkvetch, 2,151 acres was designated, entirely in this state.

"Critical habitat is a term defined in the Endangered Species Act," says a press release issued late last month by the Fish and Wildlife Service. "It identifies geographic areas containing features essential for the conservation of a threatened or endangered species and may require special management considerations or protection."

Tony Frates, conservation co-chairman of the Utah Native Plants Society, Salt Lake City, said designation of critical habitat for the Washington County species happened because of a lawsuit by his group and the Center for Biological Diversity, Tucson, Ariz.

The F&WS had listed the plants as endangered in 2001, after the two groups petitioned for the protection. The agency said they should have critical habitat designated, but did not designate it.

In Frates opinion, the reason for that is Congress did not give the agency money to do the studies necessary for designation. "They have to be sued to do what they're supposed to do," he said of agency officials.

After the suit was filed, the studies were carried out. Frates does not fault the F&WS local office for failing to perform the studies earlier. "Congress doesn't give the funds so they can do the job" until funds became available as a result of the suit, he said.

Frates is glad the agency designated critical habitat. "We don't agree with everything in the decision," but the group feels the local Fish and Wildlife Service field office in Salt Lake City did a good job.

Less than a dozen acres needed for the first stretch of the planned Southern Parkway are affected by the critical habitat designation, said Myron Lee, public involvement coordinator for UDOT in the region. The proposed beltway would stretch around St. George from I-15 mile marker 2 on the east, swinging toward Sand Hollow Reservoir, accessing the new airport location and joining with state Route 9 near Hurricane.

The first two miles of the route (which would be 27 miles long) would cost about $27 million. This first section is the part that would impact the Holmgren milkvetch and another rare plant, the bearclaw poppy.

Altogether, roadway planners intend to set aside about 80 acres as a reserve for the rare plants, to mitigate the less than 12-acre loss of habitat. Both could grow in the 80 acres, "if it were fenced and managed" to protect the plants, Lee said.

Designation of critical habitat does not require any revision to the environmental studies on the road corridor, he said.

"The document anticipated this change and has cleared the corridor for a UDOT road," he added. "We've already agreed on a mitigation plan, to do the 80 acres of habitat."

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Contributing: Nancy Perkins

E-mail: bau@desnews.com