Public Hearing on Tollway Begins : Transportation: Foes say highway would promote growth, while business leaders argue it would simply accommodate it.

A cavalcade of surfers, naturalists and San Clemente homeowners kicked off the environmental review of the Foothill tollway’s $385-million southern half Thursday by blasting the proposed highway, but business leaders argued it’s pivotal to the region’s economic vitality.

During a 90-minute hearing at Santa Ana City Hall before the Orange County Transportation Corridor Agencies board, opponents said the four-lane road would promote growth in the rural backcountry of South County, trample the rolling terrain, foul the air and endanger sensitive plants and animals.

“Everything shows that another freeway will just add that much more to traffic and pollution,” said Herman Hagemann, a tollway foe. “I would resent it if that monster is put in my back yard and I have to live with an unmitigated ecological disaster.”

But supporters countered that the highway is necessary to help ease existing traffic congestion and provide a relief valve for inevitable development that will carpet the hilly inland stretches of South County even if the road is not built.

Paul Mitchell, Orange County Chamber of Commerce chairman, told the board that the tollway is needed simply to help support the county’s burgeoning population, half of it the offspring of existing residents.

“The corridor doesn’t bring that growth--it accommodates that growth,” he suggested.

Construction has already begun on the northern half of the Foothill tollway, but the southern segment between Oso Parkway near Mission Viejo and Interstate 5 at the county line has yet to pass environmental muster. Thursday’s session was just an initial step in the drawn-out process.

The tollway agency board is slated to pass judgment on the environmental impact report Oct. 10. In the meantime, a federal review of the project’s environmental failings will kick off, and it’s not expected to culminate until 1995.

If all goes according to plan, construction would begin in 1996 and the road would be opened in 2000.

William C. Woollett Jr., tollway agencies executive director, said a typical car trip on the tollway from San Clemente to the Irvine Spectrum business complex will take half an hour in the year 2010. If the road is not built, a similar trip on Interstate 5 would take 65 minutes, Woollett said.

Officials say the road would handle 60,000 vehicles a day, and its southern link with Interstate 5 would not present the sort of daily grind currently gripping the El Toro Y.