A Fight to the Finish : Opponents Still Hope They Can Stop Tollway

Environmentalists may be savoring their victory against development of Laguna Canyon with Saturday’s opening of Laguna Coast Wilderness Park. But the construction clock is already ticking in their latest battle to kill a toll road slated to slice through the 3,200-acre park.

Evidence of the tollway corridor is all around: Standing atop the ridges of Laguna Canyon, it is easy to see a carved-out hillside in Aliso Viejo that hints at the road’s eventual route through the park; on a recent day, a drilling crew was taking soil samples in the park.

On March 3, more than $1 billion in tax-exempt revenue bonds were sold to finance the 17.8-mile San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor. And on March 11, corridor agencies gave the final go-ahead to contractors for the six-lane thoroughfare.

It will be “several weeks” before earthmovers begin in earnest on the roadway, a corridor agencies spokesman said. Time enough, say environmentalists, who hold out hope that several lawsuits pending over the project in state and federal courts could yet halt the tollway.

Not likely, say many county and wildlife officials familiar with the project.

“The toll road was and is a reality that we must recognize in our plans for creating a regional park,” said Robert G. Fisher, director of the county’s harbors, beaches and parks department, which will manage the wilderness area.

The challenge now, Fisher said, is to work with the tollway agency to minimize the road’s impact on Laguna Coast’s flora and fauna.

Environmentalists, however, insist that their cause is not lost.

“If I thought it was hopeless, I wouldn’t be fighting,” said Elisabeth Brown, a biologist who helped lead environmentalists in their successful fight to create the wilderness park.

“People need to realize this toll road is a monster,” said Brown, president of Laguna Greenbelt Inc. “It’s like having the 405 freeway running through some of the most sensitive habitats in Orange County.”

The San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor originally was planned in the mid-1970s as a freeway to connect the Corona del Mar Freeway with Interstate 5 in South County, in large part to alleviate congestion on the San Diego Freeway. But it also was aimed at providing highway access to planned housing developments along its route.

The project entails building 14.5 miles of new road, plus three miles of extra lanes to Interstate 5 from Avery Parkway to Ortega Highway in San Juan Capistrano, according to corridor agencies spokeswoman Lisa Telles. It also will include adding two lanes to the Corona del Mar Freeway for three-tenths of a mile at the tollway’s north terminus.

Under a proposed toll structure, it would cost $2 to drive the entire route.

The construction contract was issued at $793 million, and the remainder of the $1.1 billion in revenue bonds sold for the project is expected to cover financing costs, administration and design review.

Some say the corridor is really an inland version of an old plan to build a freeway along Pacific Coast Highway. That plan was shot down by residents along coastal Orange County in the mid- to late 1960s. Eventually, its proposed path was pushed inland--mostly through unincorporated county turf.

It evolved into a pay-to-drive road in the late 1980s, after efforts failed to get state funding or voter approval for a transportation sales tax to pay for it.

Environmentalists have opposed the highway since its earliest incarnation. But by the time it evolved into a tollway proposal, they also had turned their attention to blocking the Irvine Co.’s plans for the controversial Laguna Laurel development, a collection of homes and a golf course at the northern end of Laguna Canyon that had all the necessary county permits.

The tide for that project shifted in November, 1989, after more than 8,000 demonstrators massed on Laguna Canyon Road in a historic protest against development of the canyon. After much discussion and negotiation, the Irvine Co. finally agreed to sell the Laguna Laurel property and other canyon area parcels to the city of Laguna Beach for $78 million.

The county agreed to kick in $10 million for land that would become part of a huge county-run wilderness park. And Laguna Beach voters agreed in November, 1990, to tax themselves to raise $20 million for the acquisition. So far, the city and environmentalists have scraped together about $40 million of that total and are hopeful of raising the rest by June 30, 1995.

But part of the transaction, said corridor agencies public affairs director Michael Stockstill, was that the city of Laguna Beach and other signatories not oppose the tollway.

Laguna Beach Mayor Lida Lenney demurs.

“We promised . . . not to be involved in any lawsuits against the tollway,” said Lenney, who remains a vocal opponent of the project. “We never promised to give up our First Amendment rights to oppose the road.”

Attorneys for the National Resources Defense Council, acting on behalf of various environmental groups, have been challenging the project’s federal and state environmental impact documents in the courts for years, so far without much success.

Most highway opponents had long hoped that the ultimate stake through the heart of the tollway would be the listing of the California gnatcatcher as a federally endangered species. In the end, the tiny songbirds living in the coastal sage scrub dotting the corridor route were declared a “threatened species” last month, and U.S. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt proposed the creation of special rules that would protect the bird, but balance economic concerns.

Even before that, however, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service granted tollway officials permission to destroy 155 acres of coastal sage to clear a path for the San Joaquin Hills corridor. Wildlife service biologists issued a “no jeopardy” ruling, saying that while the land is prime habitat and home to 30 pairs of gnatcatchers, the loss of those birds or their nesting grounds would not result in extinction of the species in Southern California.

A condition of that “no jeopardy” finding was that the tollway agency must create 262 acres of viable coastal sage on nearby land. About half of it is to be planted atop the closed Coyote Canyon landfill in the hills near Irvine.

Restoring coastal sage habitat has rarely been successful, and critics of the wildlife service’s finding say landfill soil may prove inhospitable to native coastal plants. But service biologists note that tollway builders must try until they succeed in providing alternative habitat for the gnatcatchers and other species imperiled by the proposed tollway.

Laguna Beach Mayor Lenney is undaunted. She said she plans to ask the wildlife service to hold a public hearing over the “no jeopardy” finding. That effort, and the fate of the pending lawsuits, constitutes the latest quest to defeat the toll road.

Joel Reynolds, senior attorney for the National Resources Defense Council in Los Angeles, said he believes there is ample new scientific evidence the wildlife service should consider before issuing a formal ruling on the highway project permit.

As part of his decision on the gnatcatcher, Babbitt agreed to work through the state of California’s voluntary conservation program in developing a strategy to preserve the bird’s habitat. The state, meanwhile, convened a scientific review panel to issue guidelines for habitat preservation.

It is those guidelines, which recommend preservation of 95% of Southern California’s remaining coastal sage, that provide the best argument for reversing the wildlife service’s approval of the road, Reynolds said.

“From our viewpoint, it would be difficult to imagine information more significant than these guidelines,” he said. “We believe this is one of the worst projects in Southern California.”

But federal wildlife service officials say the agency is unlikely to reverse the preliminary approval.

“As far as I know, the service has no intention of overturning that finding,” said Gail Kobetich, California planning manager for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service in Sacramento.

To be sure, environmentalists have not been the only ones dissatisfied with the tollway.

Commuters from Newport Beach and farther south who use the newly opened Newport Coast Drive have been dismayed to learn that their shortcut to the nexus of businesses in Irvine and Costa Mesa will be closed for much of the tollway’s three-year construction schedule. When Newport Coast Drive reopens, users will have to pay a toll to connect with the Corona del Mar Freeway and adjacent MacArthur Boulevard in Newport Beach.

Farther south, some San Juan Capistrano residents have objected to the southern end of the tollway route through their city.

But for Fisher, the county’s head of harbors, beaches and parks, the tollway is coming and is something better worked with than fought--particularly over the wilderness park stretch. The county has hired landscape architects to develop a management plan for the wilderness park, including noted San Francisco landscape architect Lawrence Halprin.

“We’ve certainly tried to impress on the (corridor agencies) that the road will go through a sensitive area,” said Fisher, who met with corridor agencies officials and the county landscape architects last week for a general discussion of issues.

“The thought is that there may be some flexibility left in the planning of the corridor that allows us to further mitigate the impacts of the road,” Fisher said. “But I think it needs to be made clear that we’re not talking about major changes in design.”

Tollway officials say the corridor already has been designed to avoid and minimize disruption to the environment to the degree possible. After the listing of the gnatcatcher, Stockstill said tollway designers are adding a fourth wildlife crossing under the road’s path through the park.

A core group of environmentalists are not persuaded. Many believe demonstrations and lobbying of political leaders can turn things around, just like the Laguna Laurel project. “We need to get the public to understand that it’s not a done deed,” said Lenney, who spoke at Saturday’s park dedication. “If enough people protest and make their feelings known to Congress and state officials, that’s where our salvation will come.”

Just in case, as a recent town hall meeting in Laguna Beach over the tollway was breaking up, Lenney quipped to those departing: “We saved the best for last. Who’s willing to put their body in front of the bulldozers?”

She got some takers, although she realizes that could be dangerous. Still, she added, paraphrasing baseball player Yogi Berra: “We feel as though it ain’t over ‘til it’s over.”

Cutting Through the Hills Work is slated to begin soon on the San Joaquin Hills toll road, which will have six lanes and link the Corona del Mar Freeway with Interstate 5 near San Juan Capistrano. Environmentalists oppose the toll road, but permits and financing have been obtained, and toll road officials say the project will go forward. No cloverleaf: To minimize land-use, ramps will be in only two corners of the interchange, rather than in four corners, as with a typical cloverleaf design. Animal crossing: A path will allow animals to pass under the highway. Three other crossings will be in key areas long the tollway. Hillside Impact: Hillsides will be cut back and terraced. Terrace “steps” will be rounded-off, native vegetation replanted. Source: Transportation Corridor Agencies PARK OPENS: Tollway protesters were among visitors at the opening of Laguna Coast Wilderness Park on Saturday. B3