Environmental Agency Picks 4 Top Jail Sites

The Orange County Environmental Management Agency Wednesday identified four sites it will recommend to the Board of Supervisors as the best locations for a new maximum-security jail.

The four sites, selected from a list of 29, are in Coal and Gypsum canyons, Fremont Canyon and Irvine Lake (all in the county’s eastern foothills) and Chiquita Canyon (near the Ortega Highway in southern Orange County).

A proposal 2 1/2 years ago to put a jail in Coal or Gypsum Canyon met stiff opposition from Anaheim Hills residents. It was that protest that prompted the supervisors to extend the search for a new jail site over the entire county.

The agency’s report, reviewed Wednesday by a jail task force committee appointed by the Board of Supervisors, also lists six secondary sites: Rattlesnake Canyon, north of Irvine; and La Paz, Canada Gobernadora, Caspers Park, Caspers Park East and San Juan Creek, all south of the Ortega Highway.

Next week the supervisors will consider the report and decide which sites should receive further environmental reviews as primary choices. Tom Eichhorn, executive assistant to Supervisor Bruce Nestande, whose district includes three of the four primary sites, said the task force was recommending all four sites “with no particular preference.”

“The four primary sites were selected because they are relatively remote but still are accessible” to other parts of the county, Eichhorn said. The secondary sites, although they meet the minimum criteria established by the committee, have geological problems or are too isolated to be considered as a first choice, he said.

The county has been under pressure since 1978 to relieve overcrowding at its jails. Next Wednesday, in addition to selecting primary sites for the 5,000-inmate jail, the supervisors will consider a draft environmental impact report on what is called the “near-term facility,” a 1,500-inmate jail proposed for a site near Anaheim Stadium.

The supervisors also plan to expand the James A. Musick branch jail, an honor farm near El Toro. On Wednesday, as they approved expansion plans for the Musick facility, the board agreed to try to swap the land on which it is located for the site it ultimately selects for the long-term jail--a decision that is at least six months away, Nestande said.

The Fremont Canyon and Irvine Lake sites are owned by the Irvine Co., as is most of the Gypsum and Coal canyons site. Coldwell Banker also owns part of that site. The Santa Margarita Co. owns the Chiquita Canyon site.

Idea Discussed

Nestande, who came up with the swap idea, said he has informally discussed it with the Irvine Co., which is developing the Irvine Spectrum office complex on land near the Musick jail. But, Nestande said, the likelihood of working out a land swap with a particular owner will not be a factor in the board’s final choice of a site.

“There are only two landowners, so I think they will both be willing to negotiate,” Nestande said.

Whatever site the supervisors ultimately pick, they are bound to run into opposition.

Tallas Margrave, co-chairman of an Anaheim Hills group battling a new jail in Coal and Gypsum canyons, called the designation of the canyons as a first choice “asinine,” in part because Coal Canyon is so close to Featherly Park.

“What are fleeing convicts going to do--rest up at Featherly?” Margrave said. “We will fight it.”

In San Juan Capistrano, assistant city manager Glenn Southard said his city is on record as opposing the Chiquita Canyon site because of the traffic it will generate and because it is near Wagon Wheel Regional Park.

Orange City Manager J. William Little said choosing the Irvine Lake site would disturb the city’s plans to annex 7,500 acres of land around the lake that the Irvine Co. now owns and proposes to develop.

Besides, Little said, Orange already has the Theo Lacy minimum security jail. “Now we’re talking about a jail that’s gong to be bigger than most state penitentiaries--that’s asking the City of Orange to do more than its fair share,” he said.