No Deal on Tollway, Environmental Officials Say : Wetlands: Builders of planned San Joaquin Hills road offer 1.4 acres of new habitat for every acre lost. Officials want twice that.

As they step up to the bargaining table, environmental protection officials reviewing the proposed San Joaquin Hills tollway are saying they will not accept the county’s $8-million plan to replace rare wetlands damaged by the road.

Those state and federal officials say they will ask for more--perhaps twice as many man-made wetlands than Orange County’s tollway builders have offered. In addition to more wetlands, state officials are even hoping they can negotiate a deal to save Coal Canyon near Anaheim Hills.

The 17-mile highway through South County is expected to eventually obtain its federal and state permits to damage wetlands, probably by the end of this year. The issue to be resolved in the next few weeks is what the road builders will have to do in return.

“None of the resource agencies are willing to buy off on (the plan) at this point,” said Bruce Henderson, a project manager at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the agency responsible for enforcing the nation’s wetlands laws.

The most intriguing idea that has surfaced is for the tollway agency to buy and preserve Coal Canyon, which is earmarked for a large housing development. State Fish and Game officials, who came up with the notion, say Coal Canyon is such an important natural resource, especially for mountain lions, that they consider its preservation a legitimate way to offset part of the damage from the toll road.

But the proposal raises concerns among environmentalists, who are vehemently opposed to the road. They worry that Laguna Canyon would be sacrificed for Coal Canyon--which Michael Phillips, director of the Laguna Canyon Conservancy, likened to “choosing between saving your arm or your leg.”

“They should go ahead and buy Coal Canyon,” Phillips said Friday upon hearing of the proposal for the first time, “but clearly we don’t want to see any damage to wetlands in this (Laguna Canyon) area. That’s the whole problem with mitigation--destroying sensitive habitat in one area and preserving it in another, when what we should be working toward is saving all of it. . . . We want both the arm and the leg.”

Officials with the county’s Transportation Corridor Agencies are studying the cost and feasibility of the state’s proposal.

“We’re considering it,” said TCA spokesman Mike Stockstill. “We’ll get back to the state officials as soon as we have a response.”

A major obstacle would be the high cost of land in Coal Canyon, since the owner, Hon Development, has approval to build 1,550 homes there. Although appraisals have not yet been completed, the 663 acres is assumed to be worth millions of dollars.

The long-anticipated review of the tollway’s wetlands plan began Wednesday. Notices of the federal review were sent last week to more than 500 people, including homeowners along the proposed route and local government officials. Comments are being accepted through Oct. 9, with a decision by the Corps expected in late November or December.

Obtaining the wetlands permits is one of the last environmental hurdles that the controversial tollway faces.

The TCA’s wetlands plan already includes more than $8 million in wetlands improvements and a realignment to avoid damaging Bonita Reservoir in Irvine. In exchange for damaging about 14 acres, the TCA has proposed to create almost 20--an average of 1.4 new acres for every acre destroyed.

As long as there is “no net loss” of wetlands, the road must be awarded permits, said Henderson. Still, officials from the Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the state Department of Fish and Game say they will take a hard-line approach during negotiations because the project is large, high-profile, and damages pieces of so many wetlands.

The six-lane tollway would cross 15 creeks, from San Diego Creek in Irvine to Trabuco Creek near San Juan Capistrano, most of which contain freshwater wetlands.

The most extensive damage would occur to Bonita Creek in south Irvine, which would be realigned and framed by concrete retaining walls. Laguna Canyon Creek also would lose about three acres of wetlands due to construction of access ramps and rerouting of Laguna Canyon Road, according to the Corps of Engineers’ public notice.

The environmental agencies want more than the 20 acres proposed by the TCA because man-made wetlands are risky endeavors. Of the estimated 50 to 90 projects to create freshwater wetlands in Orange County, only a few have been deemed successful. Most have experienced serious problems, often due to poor engineering or neglect; others are total failures.

Because so many fail, the agencies also want the new wetlands to be planted and growing for a full year before the bulldozers start. That means the tollway agency could build in the creek beds no sooner than early 1994.

TCA officials declined to comment on how much more they might be willing to spend.

“Our most recent discussions (with the resource agencies) have been positive and productive. We are confident we will reach an agreement on a wetlands improvement plan, as we have previously done on the Foothill corridor,” the TCA said in a statement.

To gain similar approval to build a segment of the Foothill tollway, the agency spent more than $2 million creating 28 acres of wetlands near Ortega Highway. The site has only recently been planted, but state Fish and Game officials say they are pleased with the results so far.

Henderson called the TCA’s proposed replacement ratio for the San Joaquin tollway “on the low side.” He said state and federal officials prefer three new acres to replace every damaged acre.

Riparian wetlands are wooded areas alongside creeks that are home to an exceptionally diverse set of wildlife. Biologists say 75% to 90% of California’s freshwater wetlands have been paved or drained for development or agriculture.

But officials said they could settle for less wetlands if the TCA agrees to buy some unspecified amount of land in Coal Canyon.

Mike Giusti, a Fish and Game biologist responsible for protecting Southern California wetlands, proposed the idea to preserve Coal Canyon. He has called the canyon one of Southern California’s most vital wildlife areas. The area provides a vital path for mountain lions to migrate between the Santa Ana Mountains and Chino Hills and is adjacent to a state preserve of unusual Tecate cypress trees.

Hon Development obtained approval this year from the city of Anaheim to build 1,550 homes on 663 acres in Coal Canyon. The Fish and Game Department filed suit against the city on environmental grounds, but it was thrown out of court when a judge ruled that the state had no authority to sue. A similar suit by local environmentalists is still pending.

The recession, Henderson said, may have brought land values down so low and cut into housing sales so deeply that Hon may be willing to negotiate.

Officials from the development company were unavailable for comment Friday.

The Coal Canyon idea, however, raises some questions, Henderson said. Federal officials usually want compensation to be in the same general area as the damaged land and encompass the same type of wildlife habitat.

Coal Canyon is on the opposite end of Orange County, in a steep, lush area entirely different from the land in the tollway area. While the road would disrupt wetlands, oak woodlands and coastal sage scrub, Coal Canyon contains very little wetlands and scrub.

“This whole proposal is pretty enlightening in the way the system works,” said Phillips of the Laguna Canyon Conservancy. “The governments involved consider various habitats like pawns on a chessboard.”

Connie Spenger, president of Friends of Tecate Cypress, the main environmental group fighting to preserve Coal Canyon, says the idea leaves her “speechless” and in the “extremely uncomfortable position” of choosing between Laguna Canyon and Coal Canyon.

Creek Crossings

The San Joaquin Hills tollway would cross 15 creeks, damaging freshwater wetlands from Irvine to Laguna Niguel. In all, more than 14 acres of wetlands would be damaged; the tollway agency has proposed creating about 20 man-made acres in exchange. The six major creeks the road would cross: San Diego Creek Bonita Creek Laguna Canyon Creek El Toro Creek Aliso Creek Oso Creek