Tollway Opponents Conduct Pungent Protest at Meeting : Transportation: Despite dumping of cow manure, toll road agency boards approve 1992-93 budgets.

Anti-tollway protesters demonstrated just what they thought of the county’s environmental policies Thursday by dumping dried cow dung in the Santa Ana City Council chambers, where the county’s two tollway agency boards were holding their monthly meetings.

City maintenance workers grumbled after Geoff S. Nielson of Tustin and about eight friends completed their protest, but tollway board members paid scant attention. They had already approved the agencies’ multimillion-dollar 1992-93 budgets, which include start-up costs for the San Joaquin Hills tollway, on which construction will begin later this year.

The cow chips were dumped in the council chambers after Nielson rose to protest the county’s tollway plans. He read a lengthy speech that accused county officials of building the roads to “line the pockets” of large landowners and developers.

“We feel the county’s environmental ethic is bull . . .,” Nielson told tollway agency board members.

He and other protesters left the chambers chanting a familiar colloquialism for cow manure.

The county’s tollway plans have faced increased opposition from homeowners and environmentalists, who have filed several lawsuits seeking to halt the roads. Opponents fear increased noise, air pollution and loss of valuable open space, while supporters believe the roads will help unsnarl traffic.

One body, the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor Agency, oversees plans for a 15-mile tollway from Newport Beach to San Juan Capistrano, parallel to Interstate 5 and the coast.

A sister organization, the Foothill/Eastern Transportation Corridor Agency, oversees two tollways: the Eastern, between the Riverside and Santa Ana freeways in the hills northeast of Tustin, and the Foothill, which will link the Eastern tollway to the Santa Ana Freeway through Rancho Santa Margarita. A four-mile segment of the Foothill tollway is already under construction between Portola Parkway North and the proposed extension of Alton Parkway near the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station. The segment is expected to be completed in the spring of 1993.

The San Joaquin and Foothill/Eastern tollway boards approved 1992-93 budgets totaling $265 million without comment Thursday. Last year’s budgets totaled $156 million.

Most of the increase is due to right-of-way purchases and construction costs. The agencies--which share the same staff and offices and have overlapping board members--are funded by developer fees, Mello-Roos tax assessments on homeowners and state highway grants. Eventually, bonds will also be sold, to be repaid from toll revenues.

But, strapped for money, the San Joaquin Hills tollway agency has had to borrow money repeatedly in recent years from a variety of sources, including the Foothill/Eastern agency, the Orange County Transportation Authority and now California Corridor Constructors, the consortium building the San Joaquin tollway project.

The loan from the consortium has it forgoing its fees until the agency obtains more money, tollway officials said.

“The decline in construction of new homes and commercial properties has impacted the agencies’ fee revenue income,” said Wally Kreutzen, who serves as both tollway agencies’ chief financial officer.

In other action Thursday, Orange County Supervisor Don R. Roth was sworn in as a member of the Foothill/Eastern tollway board. Roth’s tollway agency seat was created when redistricting by county supervisors placed part of his district next to the Eastern tollway.

Also, San Clemente Councilman Scott Diehl was named chairman of the Foothill/Eastern tollway agency for the year beginning July 1. Newport Beach Councilman John C. Cox Jr. will continue as chairman of the San Joaquin Hills tollway board.

Times staff writers Gebe Martinez and Tom McQueeney contributed to this report.