Animals Still Dying on Tollway

Deer, coyotes and other animals continue to be killed by motorists on Orange County’s new Eastern Toll Road, prompting tollway officials to ask for more money to strengthen fences along the route.

At least 30 animals, including a mountain lion, have been struck and killed by traffic on the road since it opened in November. The 17-mile road, which runs from Irvine north to the Riverside Freeway in Anaheim Hills, bisects a 37,000-acre wildlife preserve created to protect scarce animals and plants. Environmentalists and others long opposed to the road say the deaths were to be expected.

“It’s depressing,” said Claire Schlotterbeck of Brea, president of the group that helped create Chino Hills State Park. “It’s proof positive of how ill-conceived it is to cut through undeveloped open space with a road.”

Five wildlife undercrossings were built along the $765-million road to prevent such killings. But tollway officials admit that they are still struggling to keep animals off the six-lane highway. Soon after it opened, tollway officials scrambled to strengthen fences after 12 animals were killed in three weeks.

Board members agreed to spend $250,000 to raise the mesh fencing on both sides of a 6 1/2-mile stretch of the road. That work, from the Santiago Creek bridge to the Riverside Freeway, was completed late last month.

But seven deer, five coyotes, five bobcats and a mountain lion have died since that work was approved. At least one of the dead animals, a bobcat, had managed to get through the newly strengthened fence.

No people have been injured in the accidents, tollway officials said.

Lisa Telles, a spokeswoman for the Transportation Corridor Agencies, the public entity that has built 51 miles of toll roads in Orange County, said additional funds will be requested from the agencies’ board in May to pay for such safety improvements as a deer crossing and higher fences. “We don’t want animals or any people to get hurt on the road,” she said.

Still unclear is the efficacy of the five undercrossings. Officials plan to install video cameras in the tunnels to determine that. Environmentalists say the deaths show current efforts to be inadequate.

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Fence Failure

Orange County officials are asking for funds to make protective wildlife fences stronger and taller along the Eastern Toll Road