Last-Minute Suit Is Filed to Block Tollway Construction

Environmentalists went to federal court Wednesday in a last-ditch bid to block construction of the San Joaquin Hills tollway and scheduled an emergency meeting in Laguna Beach tonight to consider other actions.

Tollway construction due to start Saturday was immediately postponed, San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor Agency spokesman Michael Stockstill said.

The Natural Resources Defense Council, a national environmental organization, is seeking a temporary restraining order from the U.S. District Court in Santa Ana. Attorneys representing both the corridor agency and the Natural Resources Defense Council said a hearing has been scheduled at 1:30 p.m. Monday before U.S. District Judge Linda McLaughlin.

Rob Thornton, lawyer for the corridor agency, said it will lose about $250,000 a day for each day the $1.1-billion project is delayed.

“This has been their game all along,” Thornton said. “They want to delay the project to make it as costly as possible,” in hopes that it will fail financially.

But opponents of the project said they shouldn’t be blamed for such losses because the tollway officials had no business selling construction bonds in March--which require costly interest payments to investors--or scheduling construction until all legal battles are over.

The 17.5-mile tollway, portions of which were already graded by developers, would connect the terminus of the Corona del Mar Freeway in Newport Beach to Interstate 5 in San Juan Capistrano, through wilderness areas as well as newly developed communities such as Aliso Viejo.

In a much-disputed move last year, the tollway agency filed a preemptive lawsuit against environmental groups, hoping to get Judge McLaughlin to approve the project then, rather than wait for environmentalists to sue. But she dismissed the agency’s lawsuit.

As expected, the Natural Resources Defense Council and several other environmental groups early this year filed a lawsuit challenging the adequacy of the project’s environmental studies, alleging that the studies need to be redone.

The environmental group hopes to convince McLaughlin that construction should be barred until a full trial is held on the environmental group’s lawsuit. No trial date is set for the lawsuit.

Meanwhile, in response to planned ground clearing soon along the tollway route, the Laguna Canyon Conservancy is holding a special meeting tonight to update residents and discuss what tollway opponents might do next. The meeting will be at 8 p.m. at the Wells Fargo Bank building, 260 Ocean Ave., Laguna Beach.