U.S. Officials Deal Blow to San Joaquin Corridor Plan : Transportation: The EPA turns down a key environmental document on the proposed tollway, calling it lacking in data. Planners are urged ‘to go back to square one.’

In a major setback for a planned county tollway, federal officials have rejected a key environmental document for the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor because it fails to prove that the highway meets laws protecting air quality, wetlands and other environmental resources.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s rejection of the report is expected to delay construction of the 17-mile tollway, which would cut through undeveloped portions of coastal Orange County between Newport Beach and San Juan Capistrano, officials said Monday.

Construction of the highway, already three years behind schedule, was slated to begin late this year or early next.

EPA officials have told federal and local highway planners to redo nearly the entire document. They demanded more data on the impact of the San Joaquin tollway, and also consideration of the cumulative environmental damage caused by all major transportation projects in the region.

Jeanne Dunn Geselbracht, an EPA project reviewer, said Monday that the agency has urged the tollway planners “to go back to square one.”

“We want them to take a bigger-picture approach to it,” she said.

Drafting an entirely new environmental statement for a major project usually consumes at least a year, but tollway officials would not speculate Monday on how long the rewriting could take.

“This probably will delay the project,” said Irvine Mayor Sally Anne Sheridan, a member of the Transportation Corridor Agencies, the agency planning the toll roads. She added:

“But I’m not sure it’s all that significant, because if the document isn’t airtight, it would be challenged in court anyway. We have to do whatever we have to do in order to make it less challengeable.”

William Woollett, executive director of the TCA, said in a statement Monday that the agency is “taking their comments seriously. . . . We don’t know yet how it would affect the construction schedule.”

The EPA’s action is the latest in a series of blows to Orange County’s three proposed tollways.

Aside from increasing pressure from various state and federal environmental and wildlife agencies, the highways face mounting opposition from local residents. Opponents cite multiple reasons, from the highways’ ability to induce growth to the threat facing endangered species.

The EPA action “validates that those who are opposed to it are not crazed, tree-hugging nuts,” said Norm Grossman, a Laguna Beach aerospace engineer and environmental activist.

Daniel McGovern, the EPA’s regional administrator, said the environmental document violates the National Environmental Policy Act. The law requires major projects involving federal land, highways or monies to address a long list of issues in an Environmental Impact Statement.

Federal officials say the San Joaquin Hills tollway’s environmental review lacks so much information that it is impossible to determine if the highway would comply with the Clean Air Act. The law requires that new transportation projects “eliminate or reduce the severity and number” of violations of the carbon-monoxide health standard.

To comply with new parts of the law approved last year, the project would have to offset congestion and reduce emissions in the area, not create more, Dunn Geselbracht, the EPA project reviewer, said. The county’s air quality is among the nation’s worst.

“We need more information on air quality impacts to show compliance with the Clean Air Act, and we need a firm commitment to put in car-pool lanes,” Dunn Geselbracht said.

EPA officials also say that the report failed to address alternatives to the highway project, such as mass transit.

Planners also have not adequately addressed whether the construction would violate federal law by damaging wetlands and streams, including several which would be filled or channelized, EPA officials said. Because so many of the nation’s wetlands have given way to development, federal law requires “no net loss,” which means any marshes or streams destroyed must be replaced.

EPA officials added that the road’s effect on wildlife was not adequately addressed. Among the wildlife that could be harmed is the least Bell’s vireo, a tiny songbird on the federal endangered species list, Dunn Geselbracht said.

“The corridor would become a real barrier to wildlife migration, and degrade their resources,” she added.

Opponents of the project said the EPA’s decision shows that Orange County’s tollway planners are giving inadequate attention to environmental issues.

“I’m pleased that the EPA confirmed what my group, as well as other groups throughout Orange County, have been saying,” said Donna Martin, a Laguna Niguel resident who formed Residents Opposing the (San Joaquin) Tollroad. “I’m glad that there’s growing public concern about this project.”

The EPA’s decision throws into doubt the fate of a vote scheduled in March, when the tollway planning board will decide whether to approve another, separate environmental impact report.

The two documents--one an EIS developed to comply with federal law and one an EIR to satisfy state law--are nearly identical. Woollett said Monday that he didn’t know if the EPA decision reflects poorly on the state document.

Bruce Nestande, a former county supervisor and chairman of the California Transportation Commission, said it is not unusual for the EPA to want more data, and the task of providing it won’t be a problem. But he conceded that he was concerned about the tone of the decision, saying it sounds like the agency is warning against any new highways.

“The thing that is most disturbing to me is that the EPA by its statement is discouraging a linkage of transportation to new development,” Nestande said.

He said it sounds like the agency is saying, “Jam the I-405, have all that air pollution, as long as you don’t put a new road in an unbuilt area to relieve it.”

Martin urged that the tollway board reject the state environmental impact report at the meeting in March.