Replacement of Gas Pipelines in Corona del Mar Delayed : Public works: Controversial project to be held up another year by scheduling conflicts with plans to widen Coast Highway east of the city limits.

The hotly contested replacement of 70-year-old gas pipelines running underneath Corona del Mar will be delayed another year because of scheduling conflicts with the plans to widen Coast Highway east of the city limits, a Southern California Gas Co. official said.

The second major postponement of the project was expected to please Corona del Mar residents and beleaguered businesses, still crippled from last year’s downtown traffic-snarling construction for sewer and water lines, said Royal S. Radtke, former president of the local Chamber of Commerce.

“The previous construction was traumatic,” Radtke said. “The sewer project went well, but the water project lasted at least three months longer than anticipated. Merchants are still hanging on by a shoestring.”

The Corona del Mar link from Laguna Beach is the last phase in a six-year, $3.5-million gas company project to replace aging pipes and improve gas pressure along the Orange County coast.

Originally, gas company officials planned to route new pipelines through downtown Corona del Mar on East Coast Highway from the Newport Beach city limits to Jamboree Road. They plan to install 16-inch-diameter lines to replace old 12-inch-diameter pipes.

As a result of scheduling problems, vehement community opposition and much debate, the gas line project was postponed in 1991 until this January, and plans were being discussed to divert construction from the central downtown area to the residential side streets of Poinsettia, 4th and Marguerite avenues to San Joaquin Hills Road, and eventually to Jamboree.

Last year’s proposal to move gas line construction from East Coast Highway at Poinsettia Avenue was designed to minimize the impact of construction on merchants and commuter traffic, but officials still expected traffic delays on East Coast Highway.

Southern California Gas Co. district manager John Amador said the gas pipeline project still is likely to go no farther along East Coast Highway than Poinsettia, but he added that definitive routing plans have yet to be made.

“I can understand people being upset, but this still has to be done,” he said. “We’ll meet with city officials and business leaders to discuss what we can do to make things easier. We’re really very concerned with their concerns.”

But chamber representative Radtke insisted that business owners would not permit the project to progress down East Coast Highway.

“There is still no give and take on this,” he said. “It’s not our fault that the three (construction) entities couldn’t coincide their schedules years ago when all the planning was going on. From the beginning, nobody paid attention to what the other guy was doing.”

As for residents who might oppose diversion of the project to Poinsettia, Radtke said chamber members hope residents understand the negative impact on business construction on East Coast Highway would cause, and he promised that the chamber would work to unite residents’ and businesses’ interests.

“In this recession, it’s going to take a minimum of two years to recover from the previous construction,” he said. “If merchants don’t make it, residents will be robbed of local destination services such as restaurants.”

“It’s a no-give situation,” he said.