LAGUNA BEACH : Second Suit to Block Tollway Is Filed

A Laguna Beach environmentalist has filed the second lawsuit in the past week seeking to block construction of the San Joaquin Hills tollway.

Environmentalist Beth Leeds filed the suit Monday in Orange County Superior Court against the Transportation Corridor Agencies and its board of directors, which approved an environmental-impact report on the tollway last month. Leeds charged that the report was “incomplete and inadequate” and not up to state environmental standards.

“I’m suing for decertification of the existing (environmental impact report) and for them to go back and write another one,” she said.

On Friday, four South County environmental groups filed suit, claiming that the road’s promoters violated state law and behaved in a “prejudicial abuse of discretion” in approving the environmental report. The groups are Laguna Greenbelt Inc., Laguna Canyon Conservancy, Stop Polluting Our Newport, and Save Our San Juan.

In a letter Friday to the agency board of directors, William Woollett Jr., executive director of the Transportation Corridor Agencies, said the environmental report is legal, adequate and “represents an unprecedented breadth of analysis and involvement by the public for a project of this type.” He also said that the agency made contingency plans to counter lawsuits.

“We have always recognized that with a project this significant, there would be some activists groups likely to utilize their legal options,” the letter says. “We do not expect it to delay our schedule. The possibility of a legal challenge was built into both our financial and construction schedules.”

The agency expects to begin construction on the tollway at the end of the year.