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Contractor Fined $1M for Harming Endangered Species

CONCORD, CA-The owner of a local construction company receives the fine after pleading guilty of draining two ponds where the California red-legged frog had set up active breeding grounds. He also must turn his personal ranch into a permanent conservation area.

By Michelle Savage | Updated on July 25, 2002

CONCORD, CA-A Concord construction company has been ordered to pay an unprecedented $1 million for violating the federal Endangered Species Act, after its owner admitted that he drained two ponds where the California red-legged frog, a threatened species, had set up active breeding grounds.

The sentence, which also calls for probation and a public apology, is the result of a plea bargain between federal prosecutors and West Coast Homebuilders owner Albert Seeno Jr., who pleaded guilty in federal court in Oakland Wednesday to two misdemeanor counts of violating the species conservation law.

The violation occurred at the San Marco project, a $1 billion suburban housing project in Bay Point, south of state Highway 4. Seeno admitted that during the construction of the residential project last spring he was aware that the federally protected frogs were thriving in the ponds and ordered them filled anyway.

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