Judge’s Ruling Sidetracks San Joaquin Hills Tollway : Traffic: Reviews of new air quality and wetlands studies are ordered before work begins on a segment of the road in Aliso Viejo.

A judge on Wednesday ordered authorities to review new air quality and wetlands studies of the San Joaquin Hills tollway before starting construction along the $778-million highway.

Tollway boosters were optimistic that the decision would not disrupt plans to begin construction early next year, while opponents said they hope that the ruling will prove a formidable setback.

Orange County Superior Court Judge James P. Gray criticized the Transportation Corridor Agency’s governing board for pressing ahead to certify the highway’s environmental impact report last March instead of waiting for several important studies that were due on air quality and wetlands.

“To simply decide in advance to close your eyes to those (studies) seems to me to be at variance with their responsibility,” Gray said during the hearing Wednesday. “The agency has done a commendable job. . . . But I think (members) had this one failure that was easily avoidable.”

Under the ruling by Gray, the tollway agency on Dec. 12 will once again review the environmental impact report, this time taking into account more than half a dozen studies completed in recent months that detail the highway’s potential effects on wetlands, air quality and other biological issues.

Once the hearing takes place, opponents can file further objections with Gray, who would consider any new issues during a March 16 hearing.

Tollway boosters said Gray’s decision should not have any significant effect on construction, which many officials say wouldn’t have begun until after the new year in any case.

But some tollway opponents had feared that the TCA planned to begin construction in the next few weeks on a four-mile segment of the road in Aliso Viejo in an effort to gain much-needed momentum. The decision should effectively bar the tollway agency from beginning construction on the short stretch in the next few months, they said.

“I think it’s a major step in the fight against the San Joaquin Hills toll road,” said Joel Reynolds, senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense League, which joined Laguna Greenbelt Inc. and three other Orange County environmental groups to battle the tollway agency in court. “We felt the TCA was getting prepared to break ground (for the short segment in Aliso Viejo). That won’t happen now.”

Some tollway opponents expressed fears that the agency would simply come back in December and “rubber stamp” a decision again approving the road’s environmental review. But others suggested that the judge’s decision Wednesday could prompt tollway authorities to more carefully study the issues and perhaps even change their minds about the road.

“Our feeling is that if they really take a look at the information, it will change the result,” Reynolds said.

Tollway officials, meanwhile, were putting a decidedly different spin on the judge’s ruling, suggesting that it was simply a bump in the road and noting that Gray sided with toll road backers on nine of the 11 disputed issues.

“When I look at the scoreboard, it says TCA 9, Greenbelt 2,” said Michael Stockstill, public affairs manager for the tollway agency. “To the extent that this is a delay, we’d prefer that there not be a delay. But we don’t view it as a setback. There’s nothing in the ruling that deters us from doing engineering and design work.”

During the hearing Wednesday, the judge said the tollway agency’s 11-member board erred by pushing ahead with certification of the environmental impact report without waiting to see wetlands and air quality studies conducted by a variety of state and federal agencies. At the time, those studies were not completed.

The tollway board’s tactical decision to not wait to review those studies, Gray said, “calls into question the entire process and the objectivity of that agency.”

Attorneys for tollway backers argued that any further delays at the time seemed pointless because there seemed to be no end to potential delays.

“The implication for a project of this kind . . . is staggering,” said John Flynn, an attorney representing the tollway agency. “It creates a situation where the process is never-ending because of the the ongoing approvals.”

Gray rejected such arguments. The judge also said the board, which is composed of representatives from various Orange County cities and the Board of Supervisors, should have more fully addressed the impact that construction of the tollway might have on northern San Diego County. He ordered the agency to consider that issue at the Dec. 12 hearing.

Troubled Tollway

An Orange County Superior Court judge’s decision Wednesday could delay the start of construction on the 15-mile San Joaquin Hills tollway. In particular, the ruling could be a setback for tollway boosters who wanted to jump-start the construction effort by beginning work soon on a 4-mile stretch through Aliso Viejo.