Toll road's damage estimate downsized By: DAVE DOWNEY North County Times January 29, 2008

SAN ONOFRE - State regulators have decreased the amount of environmental damage they think would be caused by the toll road Orange County officials want to lay down across North San Diego County.

But California Coastal Commission staffers say that the toll road would still do "irreparable harm" to a sensitive coastal wetland, home to a half-dozen imperiled animals.

In a report filed over the weekend in preparation for a key commission hearing next week, the commission's staff downgraded, from 66 acres to 50 acres, its estimate of how much of the potential habitat would be destroyed.

But the damage still would be unacceptable and the project could trigger the extinction of one species, the report says. The Orange County transportation agency looking to build the road strongly disputes that conclusion.

Meanwhile, highway opponents - environmentalists, surfers and frequent state-park visitors - have launched a grass-roots online campaign in advance of next week's meeting. More than 500 people posted videos on YouTube.

"It's not right," said Robin Everett, conservation organizer for the Sierra Club in Orange County, in one video. "State parks should not be used as warehouses for future development."

The hearing is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. Feb. 6 and take all day at Wyland Hall on the Del Mar Fairgrounds, 2260 Jimmy Durante Blvd. in Del Mar. Commission staff said they expected more than 2,000 supporters and opponents to attend.

The report is the commission staff's response to a sharply worded Jan. 9 critique by the Foothill/Eastern Transportation Corridor Agency of its initial assessment. The critique prompted the staff to recalculate impacts.

But the staff's underlying conclusion remains unchanged: The $875 million project would exact a terrible toll on the environment within California's fifth-most popular state park - San Onofre State Beach - and is in direct conflict with state and federal environmental laws.

Representatives of Foothill/Eastern Transportation Corridor Agency, the group that wants to build the toll road, stood by its critique Monday.

"We still believe that there are major errors" in the report, said Jennifer Seaton, a spokeswoman for the Irvine-based agency.

The toll-road builder contends the project would tread lightly on the fragile coastal environment.

Foothill/Eastern is trying to get the green light to complete the last leg of Orange County's 67-mile toll road system. The missing link is a 16-mile section of an inland Orange County toll road, Highway 241, which runs south from Highway 91. The plan was to tie the toll road into Interstate 5 at the San Diego-Orange county line.

Even though it is part of an Orange County road system, the agency is proposing to build the last four miles in North San Diego County. That's because San Clemente occupies the southern tip of Orange County and the agency says any route through the quiet beach town would require bulldozing hundreds of homes.

But going around those homes means going through San Onofre state park, parallel to San Mateo Creek. It is primarily along that stream that the environmental toll would be felt, the report says.

"It is highly likely that the project would result in the complete loss of one of the three remaining limited populations of Pacific pocket mouse and thereby hasten the extinction of the entire species," the report concludes.

It also says the toll road would threaten the survival of endangered arroyo toads and southern steelhead trout, which swim upstream on the San Mateo during years of plentiful winter rain.

But the staff's latest estimate of the toll road's threat includes some sharply reduced numbers.

For instance, construction activity would affect 39 acres of the toad's habitat, not 66 acres as estimated earlier, the report says. And 32 acres of gnatcatcher bird habitat would be affected, not 50.

The revised report also says the road's concrete footprints in San Mateo Creek could alter the downstream flow of the cobbles believed to be the source of the world-class waves at Trestles Beach.

Seaton, of the Foothill/Eastern agency, disagreed. "The 241 will have no impact on the delivery of cobbles to the coast," she said.

Citing an analysis by a transportation consultant hired by an environmental group, the commission asserted that a project alternative - widening Interstate 5 in south Orange County - is feasible despite Foothill/Eastern's claims to the contrary. The transportation agency contends that more than 1,200 homes and businesses would have to be bulldozed. The analysis says only about 5 percent of those properties would have to be condemned.

"What this means is, we don't have to destroy the park," said Dan Silver, executive director for the Endangered Habitats League in Los Angeles.

Seaton said the analysis cannot be trusted.

"The reality is that there is no funding to widen I-5, and it cannot be done without taking out hundreds of homes and businesses," she said.

Contact staff writer Dave Downey at (760) 745-6611, Ext. 2623, or ddowney@nctimes.com