Coastal Panel OKs Toll Road Despite Damage to Wetlands

Citing the need to stimulate the economy and create jobs, the California Coastal Commission voted Wednesday to allow construction of a 17.5-mile toll road even though it would damage rare wetlands near Upper Newport Bay.

In approving the project, commissioners defied a staff recommendation to reject the plan because tollway bridges across San Diego Creek would violate a state ban on new highways in coastal wetlands.

After a three-hour public hearing in Santa Monica, Orange County’s sole commission member, Huntington Beach Councilwoman Linda Moulton-Patterson, suggested that tollway officials give $400,000 for wetlands improvements in the area in addition to the $8 million they plan to spend as mitigation for bulldozing 15 freshwater wetlands in south Orange County. The commission voted 8 to 4 in support of her plan.

In voting for approval, commission Vice Chairwoman Lily Cervantes of Salinas said she was not abandoning protection of the environment. “The environment includes people,” she said. “When someone is unemployed . . . their environment is changed.”

Coastal Commission approval was one of the last roadblocks to construction of the San Joaquin Hills toll road, a $1-billion road that would extend the Corona del Mar Freeway (California 73) in Newport Beach to Interstate 5 near San Juan Capistrano.

Stunned by the decision, environmentalists said they are considering a lawsuit.

“I think it’s an outrage,” said Michael Fitts, staff attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, which represented several environmental groups at Wednesday’s hearing. “Everyone can sympathize about jobs . . . but to ignore the intense deterioration of coastal sage scrub and wetlands habitats is absurd . . . and this project will not solve our transportation ills.”

“They should rename this panel the Coastal Employment Commission,” said Beth Leeds, a Laguna Beach environmentalist.

But commission member David L. Malcolm of Chula Vista summarized the position of the panel’s majority when he said: “The endangered species nobody is talking about is the California working person. . . . Does anybody care about jobs?”