This past year has been an interesting one for the planet. While it is still hipper than ever to be green, the three main presidential candidates are busy pandering to voters (Hillary downing shots, McCain repealing gas taxes, and Obama bowling) with scad mention of the environmental crisis. Even our own green guvernator blew his environ credentials big-time by supporting the construction of a private toll road through a beloved California State Park.

But despite how lame most of our elected officials have been on the environment, the new rise of China as the world’s biggest contributor of greenhouse gasses there are a few folks in San Diego and in California who organized to save two state parks in San Diego County over the past year, reminding that the reason we live here is to enjoy the natural environment, not stare at ugly toll roads and power lines.

The Save Trestles Team
February 6, 2008, will go down as one of the greatest days in history of surfing and the California environmental movement. And it came down to this: there is no defensible position when it comes down to proposals that favor destroying our state parks.

Toll roads do not belong in state parks. Period.

And the people who got that were the amazing and passionate defenders of San Onofre State Beach Park involved in the Save Trestles Coalition from throughout San Diego and Orange Counties, California and the United States. If you were part of the organizing coalition www.savetrestles.org (you all know who you were) I salute your passion, dedication, organizing skill and understanding that protecting open space is the most important way of defending our planet and the natural resources that make California worth living in.

And if you attended the Big Wednesday meeting in Del Mar or wrote letters, made phone calls, signed petitions and did whatever it took to stop the TCA (they are still out there trying — lying it up as usual) pat yourself on the back and get back out there and remember the fight is far from over.

The decisive rejection last Wednesday by the California Coastal Commission (8-2) of the Transportation Corridor Agencies (TCA) proposed 241 toll road that would have obliterated much of San Onofre State Beach Park was one of the most significant decisions in the history of the agency. The vast and overwhelming coalition that assembled to defend one of California’s most popular state parks and one of the world’s best and most famous surf spots was historic. The more than 3,000 people who assembled to defend San Onofre were the largest crowd in the history of Coastal Commission hearings.

Since the environmental movement is not accustomed to such overwhelming victories, we do not always analyze our successes or failures. But due to the scope of the landmark movement to preserve San Onofre and the diversity of the coalition that came together in the “Woodstock of the surf movement” last Wednesday, it is critical to understand why the Save Trestles-San Onofre Coalition won.

Here is a very brief and preliminary synopsis of the Super Bowl size victory:

Coalitions Matter: While the Surfrider Foundation did a brilliant job of mobilizing the masses and creating the coolest marketing campaign in the history of the environmental movement (kudos to Surfrider CEO Jim Moriarty and Matt McClain, Surfrider’s savant marketing and communications director), the Save Trestles/San Onofre coalition included the best and brightest of California’s environmental community. The Sierra Club, through the Friends of the Foothills alliance used the best tactics of grassroots organizing and direct mail to get the public to take action and organize key advocacy trips to Sacramento for grassroots campaigners (including myself).

NRDC, Endangered Habitats League, California Coastal Protection Network, California State Parks Foundation, The City Project, and a host of other organizations and consultants also provided the political and legal savvy to help derail the toll road. Additionally elected officials such as Susan Davis, Christine Kehoe, Lori Saldana, Pam Slater Price and a variety of California elected city officials provided their strong endorsement and created legislation to ensure the protection of San Onofre. Overall this was as sophisticated environmental coalition and campaign I have seen.

Diversity Counts: One of the most cogent arguments made to the Coastal Commissioners was that obliterating San Mateo Campground and San Onofre Beach State Park was an issue of environmental health and justice. The recreational users of San Onofre State Beach Park are among the most culturally diverse of any coastal state park in California. On any given day in San Onofre State Beach Park you can talk quad design with Chinese-America surfers from Irvine, admire the grace of multi-cultural cross-county high school running teams from San Clemente traversing the park’s trails, marvel at the prowess of some of the world’s best Hispanic surfers, and listen to conversations “In about four different languages” according to Pat Zabrocki of Surfshot Magazine  in an interview with Treehugger Radio.

At the commission hearing, Los Angeles civil rights and environmental attorney, Robert Garcia  and Acjachemen activist Rebecca Robles and other Native American leaders, provided a moving and passionate defense of San Onofre as a critical site for providing access to open space and recreational resources for underserved communities. The San Mateo Creek watershed is actually Panhe, a key Acjachemen religious, historical, and ceremonial site. The involvement of Latino, African American, Asian-Pacific Islander and Native American organizations in the Save San Onofre coalition only underscores the need for the environmental movement to dramatically expand its attempt to reach out to underserved communities and people of color. This is not just an issue of tactics and strategy but a moral and ethical imperative that will help us reclaim the heart and soul of the environmental movement.

The Surf Industry Flexed its Muscles: The multi-billion dollar surf industry is relatively young and just starting to flex its political muscles (please note that WiLDCOAST receives financial support from a number of surf companies and the SIMA trade association). The surf industry was an active participant in this campaign and was out in full-force for the Commission hearing. This is a very positive and welcome sign for the future of the coastal protection movement in California and worldwide.

The TCA’s Arrogance: Alex Brant-Zawadzki, a feisty writer The OC Weekly said it best in a recent blog  (“Why the Toll Road is Dead”).

..the root cause of the Transportation Corridor Agencies’ failure to gain Coastal Commission approval for their Final Solution to San Onofre State Beach: ARROGANCE.

The TCA overreached by attempting to ram a private toll road through one of California’s most beloved state parks and global ground zero of the surfing world. The secretive agency must have believed that surfers and the people of California would sit idly by while it paved over paradise. The TCA blew it.

This battle is far from over. The TCA will take it case to the U.S. Department of Commerce, but the decisive nature of the Coastal Commission decision proves that in California, it is a bad idea to mess with our state parks.

Originally published in the Voiceofsandiego.org

– SERGE DEDINA

FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES

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Park Toll Road Plan Rejected in California

The historic San Onofre State Park is in dire need of southern California’s help as she is threatened by the continuing tug a war battle of land developers and conservationists.  However, this time, if swift action is not taken the outcome may hit closer to home than you think.  The Transportation Corridor Agency is seeking their coastal development permit to construct their toll road, which will pierce straight through the heart of San Onofre State Park, meaning complete alteration for no one’s benefit.  In their defense the TCA boasts that it will “provide improvements to the transportations infrastructure system that would help alleviate future traffic congestion and accommodate the need for mobility, access, goods movement, and future traffic demands” completely disregarding the facts of what will befall upon the state park, simply put as TCA’s “Preferred Alternative.”

Established in 1971 by Gov. Ronald Reagan, it has matured as one of the five most visited state parks in California, a gorgeous playground to hikers,campers, bikers’, and well known for its prime surf break.  The park includes thriving wildlife both on and offshore, freely roaming one of the last well-preserved ecosystems of southern California.  Gov. Reagan stated, “The greatest legacies we leave to future generations is the heritage of our land.  But unless we can preserve and protect unspoiled areas which god has given us, we will have nothing to leave them.”  Such protection calls for the whole community to unite under the flag of the earth, retaining San Onofre’ unscarred face from land development.  How will this roadwork affect Trestles?

The Transportation Corridor Agency has fought conservationists and fed misguiding information to the public in order to acquire their permit for construction. Such information fabricated San Onofre State Park being an unpopular site that will not be missed and is in call for closure, which is entirely false.  Also making petty offers of $100 million dollars to theDept. of Parks and Recreation for the beautification of other less visited parks as an elusive tactic to altar the coastal commissions decisions in their favor.  If the TCA were to win it would level sixty percent of the park’s acreage, eliminating most of the hiking and biking trails, and closing San Mateo campground and it’s one hundred and sixty one campsites.  After the toll road would be built, increased pollution will run off into the watershed of the remaining park, then in turn endangering the world-class surf at Trestles.  All this destruction to save a few minutes of drivers commutes?

Certainly such an environmental threat has to be dealt with.  Awareness needs to be spread and action is to be set in immediate motion.  As Californian’s we must work together, side by side, to preserve our land from the defilement of the TCA incursion. Involvement is relevant.  If enough of the community makes their opposition known to the Coastal Commission Office, we can put a stop to this thing.  Simply writing letters of your protest will have the greatest impact on San Onofre State Park.  Do not let developers pave over your beaches.  Nature may not have a voice to stop this, but it has mine. Why not yours?

Nathan M. Clower

Like the millions of Californians who love San Onofre State Beach Park, we were dismayed by the Guvernator’s support for the TCA toll road that will destroy a large portion of San Onofre Beach State Park. But the Los Angeles Times said it best in a recent editorial,

Maybe Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was trying to make up for planned cuts to state parks. Otherwise, it’s hard to imagine what could have led to his recent support for the Foothill South toll road.

In announcing his change from neutral on the highway that’s proposed to take traffic pressure off Interstate 5 in San Clemente, the governor said the project was “essential to protect our environment” and could be built in a manner “that will enhance and foster use of the coast.” This is environmental doublespeak. As planned, the toll road would cut through a wilderness preserve in eastern Orange County and then traverse the length of a narrow, pristine canyon that makes up most of San Onofre State Beach, one of the most popular California state parks. The governmentSchwarzenegger heads is suing to stop the project.

Perhaps the $100 million offered by the Transportation Corridor Agencies as environmental mitigation — to be used for improvements in other state parks — enticed the governor at this vulnerable moment when he’s proposing to close 48 parks temporarily as a budget fix. But the mitigation money could not begin to make up for the damage the road would cause. It wouldn’t buy more parkland. What makes all this especially paradoxical is that the wilderness preserve and the campgrounds at San Onofre were themselves created as mitigation measures for other developments.

Both metaphorically and geographically, the Foothill South tollway would lead the state down a bad route. As proposed, it would go where few are interested in heading — eastern Orange County. Commuters on the I-5 are generally headed toward the central county; the toll road agency is betting that to beat the traffic, motorists will pay a substantial toll to drive out of their way, a strategy that has failed before.

The best that can be said is that the toll road agency worked hard to find the most environmentally acceptable route among an environmentally unacceptable set of options. It doesn’t have to end there, though. Agency officials have been loath to consider widening the I-5 with toll lanes through the congested area. This would be considerably more expensive and involves eminent domain proceedings. But toll lanes along existing freeways have proved popular. And eminent domain was used successfully to widen the I-5 through central and northern Orange County. When the California Coastal Commission meets Feb. 6 to consider the Foothill South proposal, it should disregard the governor’s attempt to make environmental degradation sound good and insist on a better path.

So join us on February 6th at the Del Mar Fairgrounds for a meeting of the California Coastal Commission that will decide the fate of one of Southern California’s last coastal open space preserves.
Serge

According to a feature story in the Los Angeles Times today (online), a report issued by the California Coastal Commission concludes that,

Building a six-lane toll road through San Onofre State Beach near San Clemente would lead to widespread violations of state environmental laws designed to protect endangered species, natural resources and recreational opportunities, according to a California Coastal Commission report released today.

The 236-page analysis conflicts with claims by the Transportation Corridor Agencies that the proposed route for the Foothill South tollway is the least harmful to the popular coastal park of the eight alternatives the Irvine-based agency considered. “It’s difficult to imagine a more environmentally damaging alternative location” for the 16-mile toll road, the Coastal Commission’s staff concluded. “No measures exist that would enable the proposed alignment to be found consistent with the California Coastal Act.”

The Foothill South would divide the northern half of San Onofre state park lengthwise and pass over a marine estuary that has been designated a nature preserve.

With 2.7 million visitors a year, San Onofre is the fifth most popular destination in the state’s 278-park system. It contains at least six endangered species, archeological sites, campgrounds, panoramic views of the sea and world-renowned surfing spots.

If the highway is built, it will be by far the largest project of its kind put through a state park and park officials fear it could lead to other significant encroachments statewide.

It is good to know that there is at least one agency in the U.S. like the California Coastal Commission that still has some integrity. It will be critical for the actual Coastal Commissioners to reject the toll road that would destroy San Onofre and the fabled Trestles surf break. Serge