Unanimous 6 - 0 Victory

By a unanimous 6-0 vote, the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board opted to support their 2013 resolution to deny the Orange County Transportation Corridors Agency (TCA) a permit to construct the Tesoro Extension of the Foothill South 241, handing the environmental community another win over the long-proposed Trestles toll road.
Read more in the Los Angeles Times, Orange County Register, San Clemente Times and O.C. Weekly.

Thanks to our friends at the Surfrider Foundation for the graphic.

We need your help this Monday, March 16, at the meeting of the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board at Liberty Station at 9:00 am.

Please join us, and please arrive early:

San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board Hearing
Monday, March 16, 9:00 am
McMillin Companies Event Center
2875 Dewey Rd.
San Diego, CA 92106

We will have club representatives on-site on Monday the 16th for more information, but please arrive early and find a seat inside as quickly as possible.

In 2013 the Orange County Transportation Corridors Agency (TCA) argued before the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board for a permit to build the first stretch of the Foothill South 241 toll road through San Onofre State Beach.

Dubbed the "Tesoro extension," it was clear this was to be the first component of the freeway that would eventually go through the San Mateo Creek watershed, which feeds the world-class surfing and unique geologic conditions of the beach at Trestles.

As water quality control board member Henry Abarbanel told the Union-Tribune in 2013, "I think the project here is pretty clear. It's the project that was presented in 2008 and rejected by the people of California and the United States."

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Graphic courtesy of The Toll Roads.

At the meeting this Monday, March 16, the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board will announce whether they will follow the advice of their staff, which is advising them to say NO to the toll road.

Let's help the board appreciate the magnitude of their decision with a strong, sizable and diverse turnout. Let's demonstrate again San Diegans are not interested in Orange County, or anyone, taking away our state parks, natural resources, and places of habitat and recreation.

Help us break this destructive cycle of pouring concrete for toll roads no one uses, by a quasi-governmental organization with wobbly finances at best, which spent thousands of dollars without public scrutiny, and which still relies upon state taxpayers to police and maintain their freeways - which are now, and will always be, inappropriate in state parks or any established park or designated open space.

The Water Quality Control Board has posted an agenda for Monday's meeting, but please be prepared to stay until our issue is addressed.

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As far as the TCA is concerned, they're counting on you not being there.

They're counting on you growing weary of attending another meeting. They're counting on you to forget about it. They're counting on you to say "well, it's just one segment of road." They're counting on you to give in and let them pour concrete into the backcountry of a state park.

California State Parks are not placeholders. Each individual park at the federal, state and local level has been set aside with due process and significant community activism and involvement in order to guarantee a place for the public to recreate, for open space to be preserved, and for wildlife and other natural habitat to be maintained in an increasingly urbanized world.

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Imagine the precedent that were to be set if a freeway were allowed to be built into the backcountry of a California State Park. Would logging at Calaveras Big Trees or Humboldt Rewoods be appropriate? Or luxury condos along the shore at Montaña de Oro or atop Palomar Mountain? These places are set aside as parks for a reason, and are not intended to be undone when an entity wants to build a road through it.

With repeated meetings, litigation, and various schemes, the Orange County TCA continues to look for cracks in the mortar and opportunities to sneak the Foothill South 241 toll road into the backcountry of San Onofre State Beach and through the San Mateo Creek watershed. But parks and other open space exist specifically to prevent roads being built through special places or natural areas. So why should San Onofre State Beach be any different?

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The TCA's arguments came up short before the California Coastal Commission and the U.S. Department of Transportation in 2008, and those decisions were ultimately upheld by none other than the Bush administration at the end of that year.

Let's keep it that way. Enough of the zombie freeway. Enough of Orange County trying to regulate San Diego parks and open space. Enough of the Foothill South 241 toll road.

As Clint Eastwood famously said in a 2007 clip opposed to the toll road, "Bad ideas are not uncommon. Have the toll road somewhere else."

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Responsible environmental policy doesn't happen by sheer luck, it happens because of involved citizenry.

Thanks to Julianne Bradford for sharing this graphic with us.

Testoro extension map courtesy of The Toll Roads / O.C. Weekly.
Save San Onofre and Trestles graphic by Julianne Bradford.
All other photos by Tommy Hough.