1,200 Rally in Last-Ditch Effort to Stop 2 Toll Roads : Protest: Organizers hope officials still can be forced to abandon the San Joaquin Hills and Foothill freeways.

About 1,200 residents gathered Sunday to launch a last-ditch effort against plans to build two toll roads, warning that the proposed highways would harm both the environment and the quality of life in Orange County.

The crowd gathered in a grassy field on the UC Irvine campus to listen to speeches from local government leaders and environmentalists who decried the toll roads as a ploy to open new terrain for development.

The rally was organized by Citizens against the Tollroads, a newly formed group that has launched an eleventh-hour mail and telephone campaign to stop the San Joaquin Hills and Foothill tollways.

Opponents launched the effort even though construction work is about to begin on the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor, a 17.5-mile route that would cut a swath through South County coastal hills, linking Newport Beach to San Juan Capistrano.

A small section of the second tollway, the 30-mile Foothill Transportation Corridor that will stretch from near Irvine Lake to Interstate 5 south of San Clemente, is scheduled to open this fall.

But the group’s leaders say they hope to put up new opposition to force officials to abandon the project.

On Sunday, some city leaders showed up at the rally to register their support for the anti-tollway effort.

Laguna Beach Mayor Lida Lenney told the crowd that if the San Joaquin Hills tollway is built, “we will no longer be able to swim in the healing waters of the Pacific.”

“Gas and oil will contaminate the water,” Lenney said.

San Clemente Councilman Thomas Lorch said that real estate interests had secured “firm control” over local city councils during the last six years in order to get plans for the tollway approved.

Jeff Vasquez, a councilman from San Juan Capistrano, agreed.

“The tollways (ensure) maximization of the land for some of the largest landowners in the county,” Vasquez said. “If the landowners don’t have access (to the land), they have no development. These roads are the key.”

Former Irvine Mayor Larry Agran said the Irvine Co., which owns most of the land through which the San Joaquin Hills toll road will pass, had prevented access to the scenic San Joaquin Hills “because the more people who are exposed to the beauty of these hills, the more likelihood that the toll road will never be built.”

Tollway officials argue that supporters of the new group are raising old issues that were resolved months ago and that some of the participants are “sore losers”--veterans of previous tollway-related battles.

But some residents said they will continue their opposition to the toll roads.

Pam Schader, an art professor at Irvine Valley College, said she attended Sunday’s rally to show local politicians “that people need open space and clean air.”

“I care about this land,” said Schader who brought along her pet goat, Tinkerbell, to the rally. “I want to see it preserved and not demolished.”

Sammy Ho, a 21-year-old junior majoring in economics at UC Irvine, said he was shocked when he learned only recently about plans to build the San Joaquin tollway. “They say this is going to help the traffic situation, but this will bring even more congestion to the area,” Ho said.