US Commerce Sec sides with radical enviros on 241 South - vetoes consensus alignment

US Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez today sided with radical environmentalists in southern California rejecting the alignment for the 241 Foothill South (CA241) tollroad that has been supported by USDOT, USEPA, US Fish and Wildlife Service, as well as by the state of California and local governments in the area as well as the local public Foothill/Eastern toll authority (aka TCA or The Toll Roads.) Gutierrez' decision sides with a rejection of the consensus alignment by a California Coastal Commission, a body out of step with all other state agencies and dominated by environmentalists who in public statements said they were opposed to any facility which allowed people to continue to use cars.

A majority of local people support the consensus alignment proposed by the toll authority and most public agencies by about two to one, surveys show. Going south the consensus route follows the eastern edge of development and then an edge strip of the huge Camp Pendelton Marine Corps base ending with an interchange with I-5. That edge strip has always been reserved for a highway but meanwhile has been on short term lease to the state as a park. It has some trails, camp grounds and picnic facilities.

The 28-page opinion signed by Gutierrez finds reasons not to over-rule the radical state coastal commission because it says there is a viable alternative route (something the state coastal commissioners never themselves claimed).

NOAA greens

The secretary's finding may have been heavily shaped by officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) which was the Commerce Department sub-agency handling the detail of the 241 South case, and producing drafts for the Secretary.

NOAA has some global warming zealots in its ranks who make common cause with radical greens.

The NOAA alignment

Although it was one of many routes studied in the environmental impact process Gutierrez and his NOAA advisers suggest an alternative called La Pata CC-ALPV - a route rejected by all the other federal agencies, the state agencies and local governments. It was one of 40 alternatives studied at one stage but was never taken seriously.

The LA Pata CC-ALPV route, west of the consensus alignment, goes through the middle of a developed area, divides established communities, requires demolition of 200 houses and takes double the wetlands of the easterly route. Worst of all it doesn't have a proper expressway standard link to I-5. Traffic moving between the 241 tollroad and I-5 would be forced onto local surface signalized arterials, adding to local congestion and halving capacity.

Angry local reaction

Local officials were shocked and angry with Gutierrez decision. Chairman of Foothills Eastern toll authority Jerry Amante issued a statement condemning the decision immediately. Then Amante had an approx 90 minute conference call with the media in which his anger and indignation was obvious. He called the decision faulty, devastating, ridiculous, myopic, disastrous, terrible, baffling, unbelievable... and elaborated forcefully.

He said the decision was a disaster for the region - both for the local economy and quality of life and for the environment. Amante vowed to fight on to have the US Commerce secretary's decision over-ridden or reversed. Gutierrez' decision would never be accepted by local people, he said.

Text of TCA statement

A message posted to The Toll Roads TCA website states the case:

"The decision by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce is a terrible one for millions of Southern California commuters. We strongly disagree with the Secretary’s decision to sustain the California Coastal Commission’s denial of TCA’s consistency certification and vow to push forward for the completion of State Route 241, the critical and much needed solution to Southern California’s growing traffic.

"The Secretary’s inexplicable decision is unsupported by the facts and rewards the anti-road and anti-growth obstructionists who have engaged in an orchestrated campaign of misrepresentation and distortion against the road’s completion.

"Unfortunately, the secretary based his faulty conclusion on an erroneous and misguided view that there is an acceptable alternative, one that a collaborative of seven agencies (Transportation Corridor Agencies, Army Corps of Engineers, Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, Caltrans, Federal Highway Administration and Camp Pendleton) already have carefully studied—along with 40 other alternatives—and have soundly rejected because of the following:

"The La Pata alternative (alignment) has no direct connection to the traffic-mired I-5, providing very little traffic relief to the major corridor that connects the second and third most populous counties in the state and one that the Federal Highway Administration has designated as having the highest national importance to interstate travel and international trade.

"The alternative does not provide the redundancy that is lacking in South Orange County, and is needed during emergency situations and evacuations.

"It would devastate the Talega community, bisecting this new neighborhood and taking more than 200 homes at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars and incalculable human costs.
It would have a substantial negative impact to the City of San Clemente, dumping additional traffic onto the city’s arterial roads, namely Avenida Pico and Avenida Vista Hermosa.

"The La Pata alternative would have twice the impact on wetlands (12.4 vs. 6.8 acres) than the current preferred alignment, which was the result of 30 years of planning and 20 years of exhaustive and intensive study.

"Without the traffic relief of the preferred alignment, there will be more greenhouse gas emissions, putting the region in jeopardy of not conforming to the federal Clean Air Act.

"Since the coastal commission decision, nationally-recognized experts and state and federal agencies have provided clear and abundant evidence that the 241 is safe for the environment, habitats, the beaches and the parks. We had hoped the facts would prevail, to the ultimate benefit of the millions of Southern Californians who were looking to the completion of the 241 to provide an alternative to growing gridlock in the region.

"This decision is another blow to Southern California’s economy. With the delay of construction of the final 16 miles of the 241 Toll Road, the potential 35,000 jobs that this project would generate are lost to the workers who need them most and we are destined for gridlock and increased greenhouse gas emissions.

"The TCA will now review all of its options. We will take a hard look at the legal points in the decision and plan a strategy to overcome the Secretary’s inexplicably anti-commerce, anti-neighborhood decision. " END OF STATEMENT

BACKGROUND: The 25.5km (16 miel) 2x3 lane 241 South tollroad is estimated to cost around $1,300m, and close to $200m has already been spent on it. It has been subjected to some of the most intense alternatives analysis, environmental studies, public outreach, argument and demagogery of any road project in the country. Federal and state environmental and wildlife aganecies only accepted the road after much study, discussion and compromise.

It has been fought by a coalition of radical environmentalists which until this year lacked any institutional support until they got the last couple of miles of the project into the jurisdiction of the California Coastal Commission. In hearings CCC commissioners made clear they wanted no road at all and based their veto of the project not on coastal impacts as much as the philosophy that car travel itself is bad, and should not be facilitated.

Secretary Gutierrez hails from smalltown rural Michigan

Gutierrez is a recent recruit to government and the Bush Cabinet. 55 years old, he is a son of a pineapple plantation worker in Cuba brought to the US at age 6, at first living in MIami then moving to Mexico where young Carlos got a degree in business at Monterrey Institute. In 1975 Gutierrez returned to the US and got a job as a deliveryman with breakfast cereal and snack company Kellogg's.

He rose rapidly in Kellogg's and has spent most of his working life in managerial positions living in the small rural town where they have their headquarters offices - Battle Creek, Michigan (city pop 53k, region <100k). Battle Creek is located in the flat southern Michigan countryside about midway between Chicago and Detroit.

In Battle Creek MI Gutierrez was an amazing Cuban refugee success story rising from sales to CEO and chairman of the board of Kellogg's.

The little town has a freeflowing rural segment of I-94 along its southern boundary and an airport named the WK Kellogg Airport after one of the founders of Kellogg's.

The airport serves corporate jets and other small planes. The city website shows a picture of Airforce One, the largest plane ever to visit Battle Creek WK Kellogg Airport - during the Bush-Cheney '04 campaign.

Gridlock for the people of southern Orange County California (pop 3.4m) we guess may have been born of that fateful presidential stop since Carlos Gutierrez, boss of the biggest business in town was likely in the receiving line when Pres Bush visited.

see http://ci.battle-creek.mi.us WK Kellogg Airport

According to the city website BattleCreek is named after a skirmish between two Indians and a government land surveyor in the 1830s.

Gutierrez decision (28 pages):

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2008/images/TCA%20decision.pdf

TCA Orange County Toll Roads line see

http://www.relievetraffic.org/index.htm

http://www.thetollroads.com/home/images/Statement.pdf

TOLLROADSnews 2008-12-18