Tollway Plans Opposed at Hearing : Transportation: Opponents say the 17-mile San Joaquin Hills route will lead to growth, ruin an unblemished area and disturb the habitat of an array of animals.

A flood of homeowners and environmentalists on Wednesday blasted plans for San Joaquin Hills Tollway in South County, declaring that the proposed highway will spur more growth and ruin one of the region’s last unblemished stretches of terrain.

About 150 people, most of them opposed to the 17-mile tollway, gathered at Laguna Hills High School during a hearing to collect public comments on the project’s recently completed environmental review.

“I say no to this road, period,” said Robert Wells, a Laguna Beach resident whose family has lived in the area for four generations. “One swath of a bulldozer on this land is an abomination. . . . I think this thing should be stopped now.”

A dozen protesters armed with placards featuring slogans such as “I think toll roads stink,” held a quiet demonstration before the hearing.

“I’m one of those people willing to lay down in front of the bulldozers,” said Brian Jacobs, a former president of the Orange County Coalition. “There’s simply no need for it. It’s immoral.”

Under current plans, the tollway would branch off the San Diego Freeway at the southern end of Mission Viejo and meander northwest through the sprawling subdivisions and lush landscape, terminating at the Corona del Mar Freeway in Irvine.

Though it promises to help ease the region’s pressing traffic mess, the tollway would also cut through some of Orange County’s most ecologically sensitive terrain.

Residents in communities stretching from Laguna Beach to Laguna Hills Leisure World are concerned about the tollway’s potential effect on everything from their health to their home values. Others complain that the tollway would spark another development boom in an area already choked with houses.

Environmentalists are concerned that the tollway would destroy one of the last remaining vestiges of Orange County’s bucolic past, pushing a ribbon of asphalt through land that ultimately is expected to become a wilderness park. The tollway, they contend, also would carve into hillsides and upset the habitat of an array of animals, including deer, skunks and bobcats.

State and federal wildlife biologists, meanwhile, say the tollway will cut through important terrain that animals use to travel between Upper Newport Bay and the San Joaquin Hills and the national forest to the east. By cutting off their access, animals will begin to vanish from the hills and bay, they say.

Biologists with the federal Fish and Wildlife Service are especially concerned that the tollway will lead to extinction of the clapper rail, a shy, colorful, rare bird that lives at the bay.

Federal biologist Dick Zembal has contended that 70% of the clapper rails in the United States would be “wiped out” if Newport Bay was cut off from the forest.

But officials with the Orange County agency devoted to building the tollway say they are working hard to address these concerns. Wetlands that are paved over by the road will be re-created elsewhere, they say. The tollway will also be built to accommodate the migratory paths of deer and other animals by creating passageways beneath the pavement.

In addition, the tollway will be carved through the canyons so a minimal amount of earth has to be removed from hillsides, creating a highway that will be picturesque, they say.

Tollway agency officials have also maintained that the road would not induce growth, arguing that 98% of the corridor along the route is already set aside as open space or approved for development.