Environmentalists Stand Ground in South County

A national environmental group on Tuesday listed the foothills of South County among the country’s 12 “last-chance landscapes”--sites considered crucial preservation battlegrounds in the near future.

Land that would be crossed by the proposed Foothill South toll road was the only California site to make Scenic America’s first-ever list of threatened, valuable natural areas.

The South Coast foothills were chosen because “it is an important and beautiful landscape, the threat is significant and there is an opportunity to do something about it,” said Ray Foote, vice president of Washington, D.C.-based Scenic America, an preservation group founded in 1978.

The highlighted area includes San Onofre State Beach, the San Mateo Creek Wetlands Natural Preserve and the Rancho Mission Viejo Ecological Preserve--a “biologically, culturally and aesthetically significant landscape,” according to Scenic America.

The Transportation Corridor Agencies has proposed a $644-million, 16-mile toll road connecting Oso Parkway with Interstate 5 in South County, a path crossing the state beach and the wetlands natural preserves.

Construction could begin in late 2003, if backers overcome legal challenges and proposed legislation that bars road construction in state parks.

Environmentalists argue that the area’s biodiversity, including nine threatened or endangered species, would be compromised by a road slicing through some of the last open space in the region.

Toll road officials say preservation must be balanced against the demands of population growth.

“One of the things [Scenic America] talks about is planning and building with scenic beauty in mind,” toll road spokeswoman Lisa Telles said. “That’s something we’re doing. We’re challenged with trying to balance the need for transportation with [preserving] the environment.”

Scenic America created the list based on its principles for scenic conservation, which include retaining communities’ distinctive character, preserving open space, fostering respectful development, preventing mass advertising from destroying uniqueness and promoting an aesthetic, efficient and environmentally friendly national transportation system.

The 11 other threatened landscapes on the conservation group’s list are found in Utah, Texas, Montana, Florida, Delaware, Massachusetts, Michigan, Illinois, Colorado, Montana and a mountain range that includes parts of Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland.

Threats include an unsightly telecommunications tower and a snow and street-sweeping dump near Walden Pond, Mass.; and billboard blight in the Missouri Ozarks and along the President George Bush Turnpike in Texas.

This is not the first time the Foothill South toll road controversy has been thrust into the national spotlight; the Sierra Club made blocking the final segment in the planned 67-mile county toll road system one of its national priorities.

“I contend that if you put a road through developable land, you enable land to be developed faster and more densely,” said Elizabeth Lambe, Sierra Club regional representative and coordinator of the Friends of the Foothills Coalition.

Telles said the the toll roads are designed to help traffic, and that her agency has no land-use control.

“We’ve studied this extensively,” she said. “The need for the road is due to traffic traveling through our county. If you did not build anything else in south Orange County besides what is already approved, you would still have a need for the road.”

Another of Scenic America’s goals is to preserve scenic byways, Telles noted. The existing toll roads conform to the environment, curving around important rock outcroppings, and offer magnificent views, she said. Planning for the Foothill South includes view analysis, she added.

But Lambe said she doubted the natural views would remain if the toll road was built, because they would provide infrastructure for future development.

“I question how long these byways would be scenic,” she said. “I’ve lived in Orange County for a long time, and the roads have always brought development.”

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Open Land

A national environmental group has named south Orange County as a key battle ground, citing potential effects of a proposed toll road near a state beach and wildlife preserve.