Tollway Swerves to Miss Moving Animals : Environment: Transportation officials answer complaints with realigned route avoiding migration paths and hiding the road from view of nearby homes.

County planners have slightly realigned the proposed route of the Foothill tollway to hide it from view of nearby San Clemente homes and taken steps to preserve nine animal migration paths in response to public criticism of the project.

In their new report released Tuesday, tollway officials also acknowledged that endangered birds have been seen nesting in the area, although they said it will take several years to evaluate the threat and see if any measures will be required to protect them.

The amended plan for the four-lane road did little to allay the concerns of the tollway’s main critics.

“I’m far from happy with the attempt to modify it,” said Karoline Koester, a former mayor of San Clemente and member of San Clementians Against the Tollway (SCAT), a grass-roots group which has gathered 7,000 signatures opposing the Foothill tollway.

“The noise and the view were only secondary concerns because that affects only the southern part of town. But in terms of the impact on the entire region, there are other major concerns that have not been addressed,” she said.

The controversial southern segment of the Foothill tollway would run roughly parallel to Interstate 5 and cut through undeveloped canyons in the southern tip of Orange County, northern end of San Diego County and Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base. The road’s northern segment, which already has received environmental approval and is under construction, will run from north Irvine to Oso Parkway.

Koester said residents believe that the Foothill tollway’s southern segment will induce new development and create even worse traffic problems, especially at the spot where I-5 and the Foothill would merge. She also criticized the new route for cutting close to a Juaneno Indian burial ground and an important water aquifer.

Steve Letterly, the Transportation Corridor Agencies’ environmental impact manager, said that the highway is needed to alleviate traffic on I-5 and that the negative effects have been reduced as much as possible. The new plan was drafted in response to several hundred people and government officials who criticized the TCA’s original environmental impact study.

“I feel confident we have addressed the environmental issues, but we’re not saying there are no impacts. I don’t think we’ll ever be able to satisfy everyone,” Letterly said. “You can’t always mitigate everything so that there are no significant effects.”

The $385-million southern part of the Foothill, tentatively scheduled for construction in 1996, would run from Oso Parkway near Mission Viejo, cutting through the northern end of Camp Pendleton to merge with I-5. Tollway officials will hold a hearing for public comments on whether to accept the environmental plan on July 25 and will vote on Sept. 12.

Some of the most vocal criticism of the original route came from residents whose hilltop homes in Presidential Heights, near the San Clemente Golf Course, would have overlooked the tollway. The new preferred path--called the “C alignment”--was moved an extra 500 feet away, and will be lowered 25 feet below the surface so that hills block the view and noise. The nearest house would be 800 feet from the tollway.

Despite the changes, the new environmental document states that the tollway will still have “significant, direct impacts” on the area’s aesthetics, wildlife, woodlands and grasslands.

The tollway agency concedes in its new plan that an endangered bird, the least Bell’s vireo, was seen nesting near the preferred path, close to I-5. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reported earlier that a pair was seen breeding last year at nearby San Mateo Creek at Camp Pendleton.

Also, at least 14 gnatcatchers were documented along its course. The vireo is an extremely rare bird protected by federal law, while the gnatcatcher is a candidate for state and federal protection.

Measures to protect the endangered species, however, were not tackled by the tollway agency in the new plan. The issues of endangered species, air quality and wetlands will be addressed in a separate environmental document that must be prepared for federal officials. That report will take another three years.

To minimize other ecological effects, the tollway agency agreed in its plan to elevate the road with bridges at least 200 feet wide and 17 feet high to preserve nine creeks and canyons used by mountain lions and other migrating animals. Included are Cristianitos Creek, Chiquita Canyon and San Onofre Creek, all major wildlife crossings.

The original plan included only four bridges. Five were added after tollway officials visited the sites with Paul Beier, a wildlife biologist who is tracking mountain lions in the area for state and county officials.

Beier was out of town Tuesday and unavailable for comment on the changes. But he called the original plan “a disaster” not only because it would cut off cougar paths, but because it would fragment valuable animal habitat.

He also has emphasized that an adequate crossing “is more than just a strip of land that we dare wildlife to dash through. . . . It would be a pathetic mistake to leave a narrow strip of land a couple hundred feet wide.”

Other impacts are expected at San Onofre State Park and Camp Pendleton, according to the new report. The state park would lose about 250 acres of land and another 400 to 480 acres would be cut off from the rest of the park. The tollway would cut off 710 acres at the Marine base and restrict use of weapons and other testing in the surrounding area.

Laura Eisenberg, senior environmental analyst for the tollway agency, said that the Indian burial grounds would not be harmed because the tollway is about 400 feet away and that ground water will be protected by a system to divert runoff from the road into a catch basin.

Public Hearings on the Foothill Tollway

July 11: Informational presentation, 7 to 9 p.m, San Clemente City Council chambers, 100 Avenida Presidio, San Clemente.

July 16: Public hearing before San Clemente Planning Commission, 7:30 p.m., San Clemente City Hall.

July 17: Public hearing before San Clemente City Council, 7:30 p.m., San Clemente City Hall.

July 25: Public hearing before Tollway Corridor Agencies, 10 a.m., Santa Ana City Council chambers, 20 Civic Center Plaza.

Sept. 12: Public hearing before Tollway Corridor Agencies. Final decision due on whether to approve the tollway’s environmental document. 9:30 a.m., Santa Ana City Council chambers.