Groups Uniting to Battle O.C. Toll Road Plans

Regulars consider it one of the last jewels on the Southern California coast, a place of isolated beauty where the cool, green ocean is clean and the waves are some of the best in the state.

Just south of the Orange County line, San Onofre State Beach offers ample campgrounds, a nature preserve, archeological sites and 4.6 miles of beach that feature world-famous surf spots, including Old Man’s and Trestles. Osprey frequent the Trestles estuary.

Now, the largest toll road operation on the West Coast might drop a new highway into the park. Three of six potential routes under consideration by the Transportation Corridor Agencies would slice through the entire length of San Onofre’s northern section, which represents more than half the park’s land area. The TCA has yet to choose a route.

If the Foothill South tollway is built through San Onofre, TCA officials vow to take significant steps to minimize harm to the park’s natural assets. The environment can be protected, they say, while accommodating growth and relieving congestion on Interstate 5 -- now the lone highway connecting Orange and San Diego counties.

“There is a balance,” said Macie Cleary-Milan, the TCA’s deputy director of environmental planning. “We believe we can deal with the traffic concerns and protect the environment.”

Nevertheless, the project has triggered the opening shots of what might become one of the most significant environmental battles over Orange County development since the slow-growth movement of the 1980s. The Sierra Club has made stopping the toll road and planned development near its route a national priority.

Mobilizing against the Foothill South are surfers, environmental groups and a variety of state officials, including Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer, a longtime tollway opponent. Lockyer has called the Foothill South an “inappropriate use” for such a unique and popular park.

Opponents fear that the toll road plus nearby development will severely degrade a large portion of the park and spoil Trestles, the estuary and San Mateo Creek with noise, a concrete flyover and contaminated storm water runoff.

The creek is one of the last relatively unspoiled watersheds in Southern California. Endangered steelhead trout have been found in its higher reaches.

Critics also assert that the natural flow of sand and rock needed to maintain the quality of the beach and surf breaks might be shut off.

“There is only one San Onofre. There is only one Trestles,” said Rich Rozzelle, a superintendent in the Orange Coast District of the state Department of Parks and Recreation. “There are no replacements if they are lost.”

The park, which is now 2,029 acres, was created in 1971 under an executive order signed by President Nixon. Since then, San Onofre has become the fifth most popular destination in the state’s 277-park system. Park figures show it attracted 2.7 million visitors last year.

The inland piece of San Onofre is the San Mateo area east of Interstate 5, off Cristianitos Road. Three of the proposed tollway routes would divide this narrow, 1,211-acre parcel lengthwise.

It contains hiking trails, an outdoor education center, wildlife habitat, 161 spots for campers and seven archeological sites, including a Juaneno Indian village known as Panhe. The area was set aside to compensate for expanded parking facilities at the nearby San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.

The coastal section of the park features renowned surf breaks and, south of the power plant, hiking trails and 176 bluff-top campsites.

“Most of the waves in Southern California occur in urbanized areas. Trestles is one of the most natural settings for surfing. You have to walk in, and one of the last undeveloped valleys leads to the beach,” said Steve Pezman, publisher of the Surfer’s Journal. “The question is: Are future generations going to appreciate the natural setting there or the toll road?”

Bumper stickers reading “Save Trestles. Stop the Toll Road” are showing up on cars and trucks, many of them handed out on weekend mornings by activist Jerry Collamer, a surfer and marketing consultant from San Clemente.

Collamer regularly mans a table on the trail to Trestles to drum up opposition to the tollway.

Last week, surfer Scott Betcher, 37, of Mission Viejo stopped at Collamer’s table to fill out a card. “If you look at Doheny, it’s a swill pit,” he said, referring to the Dana Point surf spot that has become one of the most polluted beaches in the state. “I don’t want that to happen here.”

If built, the four-lane Foothill South would complete a turnpike system that now has 51 miles of highways -- the San Joaquin Hills, the Foothill-Eastern and a short section of California 133.

TCA officials say the Foothill South is needed to relieve severe congestion on Interstate 5 caused by continuing development in south Orange County and elsewhere. Traffic on Interstate 5 is expected to increase 50% to 60% by 2025.

Fueling that growth are planned communities such as Rancho Mission Viejo, where 14,000 homes and 5 million square feet of commercial space are expected to be built.

The six proposed routes run anywhere from 8.7 miles to almost 17 miles, from the terminus of the Foothill Eastern tollway at Oso Parkway to Interstate 5.

The three shorter alternatives connect with Interstate 5 in central San Clemente, options that have been opposed by the City Council there because they affect streets and do little to relieve congestion along the stretch of the interstate in town.

The longer proposals, which involve San Onofre, connect with Interstate 5 near Basilone Road just south of the Orange County line. The planned southbound connector, rising 30 feet above the interstate, would be visible from the ocean.

TCA studies show that the San Onofre routes would cost as much as $763 million to build. Two of the three other alignments would be more expensive -- up to $1.2 billion -- and would require condemning 83 homes in one case and 593 homes in another.

The corridor agency vows to protect sensitive watersheds from pollution, replace habitat for endangered species by buying land elsewhere, and employ biologists, archeologists and paleontologists during construction.

Agency officials plan to control erosion and potentially toxic storm-water runoff from both construction sites and the finished tollway. They say water flowing off the road would be filtered through a dozen detention basins during the beginnings of rainstorms, when roads are the most laden with oil, brake dust and other residue.

In addition, they said, the TCA would install storm-water controls where none have existed on a two-mile stretch of Interstate 5 in the Trestles area.

To compensate for affecting San Onofre, agency officials say they will offer financial compensation to the state, build under-crossings for visitors and wildlife, and erect sound walls to reduce car noise and obscure the sight of the toll road from the San Mateo campground.

Milan, the TCA’s deputy environmental director, said there would be no loss of sediment to Trestles beach, and endangered steelhead trout migrating from the sea would still be able to swim up San Mateo Creek.

The controversy over the Foothill South has intensified over the last few months with the release of the project’s draft environmental impact report. Under state and federal law, the document must detail potential environmental impacts and ways to reduce them.

Environmental groups and state officials who reviewed it say the TCA’s environmental analysis is so poor with respect to endangered species, water quality, noise and recreational uses that the draft should be overhauled and resubmitted for public comment.

In a letter to the TCA, State Parks Director Ruth Coleman says no comparable land exists to compensate the public adequately for the potential losses that could occur at San Onofre.

Environmentalists also question the TCA’s ability to treat storm water runoff. Filters on the 16-mile San Joaquin Hills tollway through western Orange County have not worked properly for years, and Caltrans has been called in to fix them.

The state parks department “should act to protect the broader state interest here,” said Bill Corcoran, a regional representative for the Sierra Club.

“The TCA has failed to take seriously the natural assets and recreational opportunities of the park.”