Protest Planned as 241 Extension Reaches Next Hurdle

The planned 5.5-mile extension of the 241 Tollway in Orange County is up for watershed permit consideration this month, and the meeting looks to be the next venue for protest by 241 opponents.

The San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board has jurisdiction over watersheds throughout south Orange County, and must approve the Transportation Corridor Agencies' plan to handle runoff from the extension before the project breaks ground.

The agencies' engineers have touted designs that include dozens of acres of wetlands restoration and catch basins to percolate runoff back into the water table. They've called it one of the greenest stretches of highway yet conceived.

The Save San Onofre Coalition led by the Surfrider Foundation, however, sees the so-called Tesoro Extension to the 241 a thinly veiled attempt to railroad the entire planned length of the tollway through the middle of San Onofre State Beach parkland, the reason they fought to kill the project in the first place.

“Building the road in segments is not only illegal, but it is a guise to construct the entire road down to San Onofre State Beach and Trestles,” said Stefanie Sekich-Quinn, Surfrider Foundation’s California Policy Manager, in a press release. “The TCA knows that, yet they are intentionally misleading the public and State agencies. That’s why Surfrider Foundation and our partners need to public to show up in droves to convince the Water Board to deny the permit.”

The TCA hopes to start construction on the $200-million extension this summer, Engineer Paul Bopp said this spring. The planned roadway would stretch from Oso Parkway to the planned Cow Camp Road in San Juan Capistrano, just north of the Ortega Highway.

The water board meets at 1 p.m. June 19 at the Water Quality Control Board Meeting Room, 9174 Sky Park Court, San Diego.