Countywide : 5th Suit Filed to Halt San Joaquin Tollway

Four environmental groups filed yet another federal lawsuit Friday to block the San Joaquin Hills toll road, charging that various federal and county agencies have acted improperly in approving plans for the $1-billion, 17.5-mile tollway.

The suit was the second filed this week in U.S. District Court in San Francisco by environmental and community groups. They were: the Laguna Greenbelt, the Laguna Canyon Conservancy, Stop Polluting Our Newport and Save Our San Juan. The earlier suit, filed by three of the same groups, targeted the California Coastal Commission.

Among those sued Friday were state Department of Transportation, the Federal Highway Administration and the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor Agency. The suit charges that the defendants violated various federal environmental laws, including the federal Clean Air Act, in approving plans for the tollway.

“We believe that the federal government should be held to the environmental laws just like everyone else,” said attorney Craig S. Bloomgarden, who represents most of the groups bringing suit.

The government’s actions, said Joel R. Reynolds of the Natural Resources Defenses Council, “turn the National Environmental Policy Act on its head.”

“We feel the process has been subverted,” said Norm Grossman, a spokesman for the environmental groups. “Every time they do something illegal, we try to call them on it.”

Grossman noted that Friday’s suit is the fifth now pending on the tollway’s future.

Mike Stockstill, spokesman for the county’s Transportation Corridor Agencies, said that the environmental groups had blocked his agencies’ earlier attempts to litigate the matter in federal court.

“Six months ago the plaintiffs kicked and screamed in objection when the TCA tried to expedite this lawsuit,” Stockstill said. “Today they do a complete about-face and want it. This represents more obstruction and delay, and the victims are commuters and the 1,500 people who will have jobs when this project is underway.”

Stockstill added that the tollway “opponents have played their last legal card--they have no moves left.”