RINCON VALLEY : New Backing Sought to Widen Highway

A state highway planner who has been trying for seven years to widen a one-mile stretch of California 150 along the Ventura-Santa Barbara county line said he hopes for more support after the July 28 train derailment.

The estimated $3-million project to straighten several 15-m.p.h. curves and replace two bridges built in 1927 has been delayed by Rincon Valley ranchers and environmentalists concerned about losing five acres of farmland and 90 trees and the effects to Rincon Creek wetlands.

County planners, state and federal wildlife agencies and the California Coastal Commission asked for an expanded environmental review of the project in 1989. At public hearings last year, Ojai Valley residents also voiced fears that improving the highway two miles east of Carpinteria would allow trucks with toxic cargo to avoid Ventura Freeway checkpoints.

Chuck Cesena, an environmental planner with the California Department of Transportation, said that after the revised environmental study is released in September, Caltrans will ask the boards of supervisors of both counties for direction in November.

A total of $4 million in state and federal funds is expected to be available for the project in 1993, a Caltrans official said.

“We’re going to ask the decision makers in the counties just what they’d prefer, us taking out trees or farmland,” Cesena said of several possible highway routes. “The trade-off has always been farmland for riparian habitat.”

Despite the years of controversy, Cesena said no one had predicted that California 150 would become a detour for Ventura Freeway traffic, as was the case for six days after the train wreck at Seacliff.

“The reality is, it’s the only alternative in a situation like this,” he said. And he hopes the project “gets a little more support now.”