REGION: Top official says toll builder misrepresented federal agency

Feds weighing appeal of coastal decision on San Onofre road

By DAVE DOWNEY - Staff Writer | Wednesday, April 16, 2008 12:46 AM PDT ∞

A top official for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has accused the agency that wants to build a toll road across the San Onofre state park of misrepresenting the Corps' position on the project.

In a sharply worded six-page letter to the U.S. Department of Commerce, the commander of the Los Angeles regional office said that the toll-building agency falsely said that the Corps agreed with the agency's conclusion that there is no reasonable alternative to the route across the state park.

"These assertions are false," the commander, Col. Thomas Magness, wrote April 7. " ... There are other practicable alternatives available to TCA (the agency) that would achieve the overall project purpose."

Officials for the Irvine-based Transportation Corridor Agencies denied Tuesday they had mischaracterized the Corps' position.

"That's nonsense," said Jerry Amante, Tustin mayor and vice chairman of the toll agency's board of directors.

The letter comes as Commerce officials weigh the toll agency's appeal of the California Coastal Commission's rejection of the 16-mile project. That decision followed a stormy, marathon meeting in February at the Del Mar Fairgrounds that was attended by 3,500 people.

The Department of Commerce has until the end of the year to rule.

Before issuing a ruling, probably late this year, toll-road opponents want another chance to sound off.

"It is imperative that the (Commerce) secretary hold a public hearing ---- and that the hearing be held in Southern California ---- to allow the public's voice to be heard," four environmental groups wrote on April 3. That letter was signed by the Natural Resources Defense Council, Surfrider Foundation, Endangered Habitats League and California Coastal Protection Network.

The toll agency doesn't want a hearing.

"We've had hearings repeatedly on this thing, and we even had the circus down in Del Mar," Amante said by telephone Tuesday from his Orange County law office. "We don't need anymore."

The agency wants to build an extension to Highway 241, which runs south from Highway 91 to Rancho Santa Margarita, and to link the toll road to Interstate 5 at the San Diego-Orange County line.

According to agency spokeswoman Jennifer Seaton, the four-lane highway would cost $875 million to design and build, not counting the price of the land, something still to be determined. Later, the road could be expanded to six lanes.

The road's last four miles would cross 3,000-acre San Onofre State Beach in North San Diego County. Because the state park is leased from federal land ---- Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base ---- the agency had the option of appealing to Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez.

In a brief filed with the secretary on March 17, the toll builder said several state and federal resource agencies, including the Corps, concluded no other route was feasible and that the chosen one posed the smallest threat to the environment.

That triggered Magness' sharp rebuke.

"I am compelled to highlight a few areas of the public record where I have found inaccurate statements as well as inferences that misrepresent the corps' preliminary determinations," he wrote.

Beside the suggestion that there is no other feasible route, Magness said, it was incorrect to say that the Corps had concluded that the state park route would cause less harm to the environment than project alternatives.

Magness said the Corps did in fact find the route to be least damaging in a preliminary analysis, but the federal agency has not finished its study of the project.

Amante said the colonel was "splitting hairs." While the Corps' judgment was preliminary, the federal agency has never suggested it has found a less damaging route, he said.

"You can call it preliminary, you can call it tentative, you can call it whatever you want," Amante said. "But you're never going to come up with another least-environmentally damaging alternative."

The Coastal Commission, in rejecting the road, said on the contrary that one would be hard-pressed to find a project more destructive to the environment. In a brief filed Friday, it reiterated its opinion that the road would ruin wetlands and a world-class surf break, and spoil the seclusion enjoyed by park campers.

"Its adverse coastal effects far outweigh its alleged contribution to the national interest," the brief stated.

The toll builder, in its brief, argued that the road is in the national interest because it would provide an alternate escape route for people fleeing wildfires and a meltdown at the San Onofre nuclear plant.

On Tuesday, Rep. Susan Davis, D-San Diego, and other California Democrats in Congress sent a letter to the secretary urging that the original decision be upheld.

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