Flower may face pipeline threat

MYRTLE CREEK — Scattered along the forest’s edge and around sunny meadows in early summer, the tiny crinite mariposa lily’s hairy white petals might be difficult to spot for the average passer-by.

But a natural gas pipeline slated to cut through the Myrtle Creek area wouldn’t be able to miss the imperiled flower known to grow only in Douglas County.

While officials with the proposed Pacific Connector Gas Pipeline L.P. say plans are in place to mitigate harm to the flowers growing in the pipeline’s path, others worry it won’t be enough.

“They don’t want to see the impact to this flower,” said Diane Phillips, a member of the Umpqua Valley Chapter of the Native Plant Society of Oregon, the group championing the flower’s cause.

Dubbed the calochortus coxii after Roseburg resident and plant society member Marvin Cox, who discovered the species in the 1980s, the flower only grows along a 10-mile serpentine ridge system between Myrtle Creek and Riddle.

Bursting with yellow anthers and violet speckles, the flowers are considered a species of concern by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and a globally and state-imperiled species by the Oregon Natural Heritage Program. The Bureau of Land Management has also designated it as a bureau sensitive species, and it is considered endangered by the state.

In 2004, the BLM and the Fish and Wildlife Service created a conservation agreement for the flower, which was intended to protect it against existing threats and keep it off the federal threatened or endangered species lists.

BLM district botanist Susan Carter said some steps have been taken since then to nurture the flowers in certain areas, such as prescribed burning and tree thinning.

“It’s to open up the canopy so there’s more light on the ground,” Carter said.

Plant society members, though, say the BLM has not done enough to protect the flower and monitor populations. Either way, no one could have foreseen plans for a 230-mile pipeline expected to route 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas across Western Oregon each day.

The planned route for the pipeline, which has drawn widespread concerns over property rights, safety and environmental issues, passes along a spur road off Bilger Creek Road, where some of the flowers grow.

Plant society members fear the project will barrel through the population, tearing up the scarce soil and rock the flowers prefer and dumping dirt and debris onto the rest.

“We’re not actually impacting the entire population,” said Toby Schwalbe, environmental lead for one of the project’s joint owners. “It’s just a sliver of (the) population where our clearing limits will go through.”

The route through the Myrtle Creek area, he said, was already changed slightly to reduce the impact. But, he said, steep slopes to the north prevented the project from being re-routed around the entire location.

Schwalbe said there are also plans to collect seeds from existing plants and propagate them in different locations. The flower, he said, is being treated like other threatened, endangered or sensitive species discovered in surveys.

“It’s a temporary impact during construction, and we would be mitigating that temporary impact by replanting,” he said, adding that pipeline officials are working jointly with the BLM and other government agencies.

Phillips and local plant society vice-president Ron Hatt say they have not been told of any mitigation plans. And replanting, they say, would not necessarily be successful, considering the flower’s narrow habitat.

The conservation agreement is based on a rough estimate of the populations, and Hatt said it’s unknown whether thousands or millions exist. No one knows how many exist on private lands, either.

“We’re trying to document how many plants there are,” Hatt said.

The numbers, Phillips said, are important because a member of the state plant society may attempt to get the flower on the federal endangered species list.

In the meantime, the local group has achieved intervenor status and filed a complaint with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the agency that would propel the project forward by issuing a draft environmental impact statement. And members adopted a resolution against the project.

“I think it’s pretty special, because it’s one of a kind,” Phillips said of the flower. “It’s our little special flower.”

• You can reach reporter Chelsea Duncan at 957-4246 or by e-mail at cduncan@nrtoday.com.