With hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on several independent environmental studies over the past decade, it suffices to say that most everyone involved in planning Wavecrest Village was certain about which protected species were roaming the property.
Never before was the threatened California red-legged frog officially named as one of those species.
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On July 14 - a week after Wavecrest Partners and the City of Half Moon Bay announced they'd reached an agreement on the project and sent it off for California Coastal Commission approval - news quietly surfaced that in June, while negotiations between the two parties were concluding, a San Francisco-based herpetologist made a surprising find on Wavecrest property: He discovered and photographed a California red-legged frog perched on the muddy banks of a drainage ditch.
His report was forwarded to the state Department of Fish and Game, the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Coastal Commission, all of which plan to investigate.
Upon hearing the news more than a month after the discovery, Wavecrest developers and Half Moon Bay City Council members were nothing short of stunned.
They're now trying to understand how the finding will affect their agreement - if at all - and wondering why they hadn't learned about it earlier.
According to Coastal Com-mission Program Manager Chris Kern, it's too soon to know if the amphibious unearthing will impact the project.
Kern explained that the Coastal Commission will take into consideration any advice from state and federal officials to protect the frog, but he said ultimately, in terms of ordering changes to the development agreement, the commission has the final say on the matter.
John Dixon, staff biologist for the commission, is performing his own inquiry.
The frog was found on June 7 by herpetologist and naturalist Chris Giorni.
Giorni said over the past three months six or seven people had invited him to Half Moon Bay, but San Mateo County Parks and Recreation Commissioner Leslie McCarthy was the only person he took up on the offer.
He visited the property twice in June.
His purpose for the first visit was to lead a group nature hike that included McCarthy, her children, and "other people also interested in learning about the environment."
On that visit, Giorni said he heard a series of low, staccato croaks - a telltale sign of the threatened animal - coming from a ditch filled with water and covered with coyote bush, but he saw nothing out of the ordinary.
Two weeks later, while passing through town, he took a second peek.
Low and behold, there it was.
Though Giorni specializes in tracking and documenting the California red-legged frog and its primary predator, the San Francisco garter snake, he said, at the sight of it he could barely believe his eyes or his luck.
"I was very surprised to find this individual hanging out," said Giorni, who runs Tree Frog Treks, an outdoor educational excursion company in San Francisco. "I had no real idea I'd find an endangered species, it was really cool."
Giorni was unclear about whether McCarthy invited him out specifically to look for red-legged frogs, initially saying, "She said that some of her colleagues had seen red-legged frogs in the area, which is what tipped me off. So I came down to take a look." Later, in a subsequent phone conversation, he corrected himself, explaining that McCarthy had not invited him down to search specifically for red-legged frogs. He said she called asking about camps for her children and eventually inviting him to take her and some friends on a nature hike.
For Councilwoman Marina Fraser, the fact that a red-legged frog was found on Wavecrest property is not necessarily surprising, though it is the first documented sighting on the land.
What's of more concern to her is that no one bothered to inform council members of a potentially problematic development, while the council was in the middle of delicate negotiations with Wavecrest Partners.
"I feel as a council member I should have been informed," she said. "I thought all of the endangered species and the wetlands and the environmental habitat had been identified so when I hear that there was a parks and recreation commissioner who was out there with a biological expert and they found frogs.
I would think that type of information should have been made available to council members," she said.
"I don't want to be callous, if there are frogs out there, let's identify them. But we need to know about that."
McCarthy said the reason the matter was not brought to council attention is she didn't consider the frog finding anything "surprising."
She said she knows of numerous people who have seen red-legged frogs on the property.
"It was well known that this was habitat, that's why it's been so controversial over the past five years," she said. "To me, I took it with a grain of salt."
McCarthy said she was not present with Giorni when he made the discovery, and therefore wasn't immediately aware of it.
Mayor Mike Ferreira, said he'd heard "rumblings" of the discovery weeks ago, but dismissed it as unsubstantiated rumors, and looked at the discovery in a different way.
The animal was found on an area designated as open space, meaning the city "did a good job" in its environmental planning. He didn't believe the frog would end up as a substantial issue.
Seeming to take the potential new hurdle in stride, Pat Fitzgerald of Wavecrest Partners said it was a new issue, and one he'll begin to deal with in coming weeks.
"We don't know much at this point as far as the impact. I'll have a much better understanding of that next week," after visiting the frog habitat with commission staff biologist John Dixon to hear his thoughts on the matter, he said.
Fitzgerald, who said he was "surprised" by the fact that someone found a frog on the land after so many previous environmental analyses had not, was still hopeful for a speedy hearing with the commission - red-legged frog or no red-legged frog.
"My feeling is it's something that's come up, we're dealing with it with the coastal (commission) staff and we still are looking forward to a (project) hearing in September," he said.
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