In a letter of August 4, 2004, Attorney General Bill Lockyer came out
strongly against the route preferred by the Orange County Transportation Corridor
Agency (TCA), the road’s sponsor. “The building of a multilane
toll road through the heart of San Onofre State Beach is unacceptable .
. . This small island of serenity in an area undergoing massive
development must be protected.”
Mr.
Lockyer’s comments, dated August 4, 2004, were submitted to the TCA in response to a draft
environmental impact report (DEIR). The focus of his comments was
the impact to San Onofre State Beach, a popular and unique state
park at the northern end of Camp Pendleton. According to the Calif. Dept. of Parks and Recreation,
these impacts would be so severe that most of the park would have to be
abandoned. The Parks Dept. also submitted comments highly
critical of the proposed highway.
EHL is also opposed to
the tollroad extension, not only for its impacts on the state park but because,
throughout its route, it would cut through the most intact coastal
landscape left in Southern California. EHL and other conservation
groups submitted extensive comments on the DEIR through the law firm of
Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger.