In a current drama over Pardee Dam, a side conflict is being pushed toward center stage.

Immunity from law protecting a trio of federally listed species is sought by East Bay Municipal Utility District around 28,000 foothill acres it owns, including the banks of Pardee Reservoir. Amador County supervisors' comments March 31 on a "safe-harbor" agreement approved in draft form for EBMUD suggest they view the agreement as effectively a Trojan Horse that would allow EBMUD's Pardee Dam plan safely - and even stealthily - to invade wildlife habitats secured by the federal Endangered Species Act.

In exchange for creation of areas of habitat, EBMUD requests immunity - a safe harbor - regarding kills or "takes" of members of three species in future agency actions on its 28,000 acres around Pardee and Camanche reservoirs, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Supervisors voted to request an extension of an April 8 deadline for comment on the draft, which concerns California's tiger salamander and red-legged frog, and the Valley elderberry longhorn beetle.

"I'm skeptical," said District 2 Supervisor Richard Forster. "I don't think it's for the species. I think it's for the raising of the dam - it's a preemptive strike in dealing with that."

District 4 Supervisor Louis Boitano said, "They're not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, that's for sure."

Part of Amador County officials' consternation with EBMUD's proposal to flood a wild stretch of the Mokelumne River traces to an EBMUD consultant's denial at a public meeting that the dam proposal and the safe harbor agreement are in any way linked. Amador officials plan to proceed as if the two are intimately linked.

"I don't like a consultant saying something because they think people in the audience don't know anything," Forster said. "To say safe harbor has 'nothing to do with Pardee' is patently false- it's a staged answer."

It's true that, in all respects - formal, technical and legal - the Pardee proposal is separate from the safe-harbor agreement.

However, EBMUD spokesman Charles Hardy said Wednesday it would be a mistake to rely on that fact to suggest no practical connection exists, and that EBMUD does not claim the two matters are utterly separate.

"They are connected," Hardy said. "It's possible that Camanche and Pardee could be altered (in a way that would kill threatened species)."

However, it would be a mistake to read too much into the coincidence of the Pardee proposal for long-term water planning and the safe-harbor proposal, Hardy said.

"I don't think it's a substantial connection," Hardy said. "Our timing was screwed up. One part of EBMUD was releasing the 2040 water-supply proposal. Another division was working on safe harbor independent of that. If the 2040 proposal wasn't happening, I don't know if the dams would have been mentioned in the safe-harbor agreement."

According to the Fish and Wildlife Service, the safe-harbor agreement "centers on" the Pardee and Camanche dams and reservoirs.

Agency spokesman Steve Martarano said in late March that the agency had "no plans" to extend the comment period.

In effect, the safe-harbor habitat-creation efforts could cause a resurgence among flagging salamander, frog and beetle populations such that some future take with a higher Pardee Dam would still leave a net gain in populations.

Despite skepticism around an intent to benefit wildlife with the safe-harbor agreement, supervisors seemed to believe such benefit could be, well, dramatic enough to cause red-legged frogs to hop, tiger salamanders to crawl and elderberry beetles to fly in abundance into habitat on adjacent private lands - and pose new concerns for agricultural operations.

Supervisors resolved to recommend that EBMUD be held liable for any surveying costs on adjacent private lands to count tiger salamanders, red-legged frogs and elderberry beetles.