Supervisors Approve Study of Eastern Freeway Corridor : Environmental Impact to Be Analyzed; One Additional Route Added to Possibilities

The Orange County Environmental Management Agency added a homeowner’s suggested path for the proposed Eastern Transportation Corridor to the list of possible routes for the freeway Wednesday and won approval to start an in-depth study of the road’s impact on the environment.

The eight-lane freeway, to be built after the year 2000, will connect the Riverside Freeway east of the Anaheim Hills area with the Santa Ana Freeway in Tustin.

About 75 residents of the area to be traversed by the freeway turned out for the Board of Supervisors meeting to register their concerns over having the freeway come too close to their homes.

The supervisors had continued the public hearing on the roadway a week after more than 100 residents showed up July 24 to protest possible routes of the freeway. Supervisors Bruce Nestande and Roger Stanton, who were absent from the first hearing, were on hand for Wednesday’s meeting.

Surprised at Turnout

“We all thought it was a slam dunk and were surprised” at the turnout last week, Thomas F. Riley, the board chairman, said. Supervisor Harriett Wieder said she and her colleagues “couldn’t figure out why everyone was here.”

The Eastern Corridor will be an offshoot of the Foothill Transportation Corridor, which will run 23 miles through the hills east of Mission Viejo from Crown Valley Parkway to Lake Irvine. The estimated cost of building the two freeways has been put at nearly $516 million, with much of the expense being borne by developers.

After Michelle Brooks of Lemon Heights suggested a route for the Eastern Corridor that she wanted the Environmental Management Agency to consider, agency Director Murray Storm included the proposed roadway in the alternatives that will undergo environmental analysis.

Brooks suggested having the freeway connect to the Garden Grove Freeway along Santiago Creek and to the Riverside Freeway along Blind Canyon to Gypsum Canyon, with the southern end hooking up with the extension of the Laguna Freeway.

Many Possibilities

Another alternative to be studied omits the connection to the Garden Grove. In all, there were 800 combinations of freeway alignments and interchanges possible at the start of the EMA study of the corridor. That number has now been cut to more than two dozen, which were presented to the supervisors for authorization for further study.

EMA officials said the study of the environmental impact of the freeway on the areas through which it will go is likely to begin around the end of this month and last until October of next year.

Residents’ comments on the path of the freeway were solicited at a series of public hearings in April and May. Residents expressed concerns over noise, air pollution, traffic impact and the overall effect of the road on nearby residences.

Although several people who testified Wednesday said they recognized the need for improved transportation in a county that has been subjected to explosive growth, Jon Brand, the former mayor of Laguna Beach, said that “regardless of whatever alignment you pick to satisfy the needs of this community, in the long run you should do something to limit the growth of Orange County.”

Environmentalists said they were generally satisfied with the possible routes of the Eastern Corridor because they do not encroach on the Weir Canyon watershed, near Anaheim Hills, which is considered the county’s best habitat for birds of prey.