A headline in a story written three years ago asked whether the battle over environmental concerns at Sharp Park Golf Course was finally over. The rhetorical question was asked in response to a lawsuit filed by environmental activists claiming day-to-day golf course maintenance at the San Francisco municipal threatened two of the area's most infamous protected wildlife species.
The short answer then was "no" as Sharp Park, which is located in the town of Pacifica, and the city of San Francisco, which owns the course, have withstood challenge after challenge to the validity of the property as a golf course.
Ask the same question today, and the answer - finally - might be different.
On March 11, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rejected a joint appeal filed on behalf of several environmental activism groups that claimed a construction project designed to provide permanent habitat for the California red-legged frog would do more harm than good and that mechanized equipment poses an undue threat to the San Francisco garter snake that doesn't know enough to get out of the way.
The decision by the three-person judicial panel could put to rest what attorneys for the city claim has been a prolonged effort by activists to paint Sharp Park, a 1932 Alister MacKenzie design, as a money-losing venture and an environmental hazard. Their goal was to shut it down so the oceanfront property could be converted to unmanaged open space.
At issue in the latest appeal is the construction of a pond that the city says would provide reliable and consistent habitat for the frog. Attorneys for the activist groups said the project would result in depleted natural wetlands and a manmade watershed inhospitable to the frogs.
At issue in the latest appeal is the construction of a pond that the city says would provide reliable and consistent habitat for the frog...
The three-person judicial panel wrote that the city and the golf course already were bound by and protected by a permit issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and under the advisement of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The courts also rejected a suit filed in 2011 that claimed daily maintenance practices posed a threat to both species. The recent suit, brought on behalf of the Wild Equity Institute, Center for Biological Diversity, National Parks Conservation Association, Surfrider Foundation and Sequoia Audubon and ultimately rejected by the Ninth Circuit, initially was filed in San Francisco Superior Court in April 2014.