County : EIR for Proposed Jail Available for Comment

County officials Tuesday published a four-volume report on the environmental impacts of a proposed jail that would house up to 6,200 inmates and gave the public one month to comment on possible sites.

The report did not express a preference for any of the four sites proposed by the Board of Supervisors: Coal-Gypsum canyons, Fremont Canyon, Irvine Lake and Chiquita Canyon.

Chiquita Canyon is in southeastern Orange County, east of the Interstate 5 freeway and north of Ortega Highway. The other sites are in the northeastern portion of the county, south of the Riverside Freeway and north of Santiago Canyon Road.

All of the sites have drawn varying degrees of opposition from nearby residents, and the supervisors’ decision, probably in mid-July, is expected to be controversial and perhaps the target of a lawsuit.

The report--by the Irvine-based firm of LSA Associates Inc. for the county Environmental Management Agency--said the first phase of the jail, to be finished in 1992, would have about 2,500 beds. The entire jail, to be finished in the year 2000, would hold 6,191 inmates, if the supervisors decide to close the branch jail near El Toro and transfer about 1,500 inmates to the new jail.

The report said the county General Services Agency estimated the cost of construction at about $316 million, plus $61 million if it is built to accommodate inmates from the branch jail.

The study did not include an analysis of social or economic impacts on nearby areas of a new jail, but it did outline the impacts on topography, geology, soils, air quality, noise and other areas of concern, without finding major differences among the four primary sites.