Extra environmental information not needed for toll road purchase, California court says.

LOS ANGELES -- An Orange County, Calif., toll road agency won another legal decision this week when a California appellate court said that supplemental environmental documentation is unnecessary for a small right-of-way purchase.

The lawsuit in question challenged a decision by the Regents of the University of California to sell property to the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor Agency for toll road right-of-way.

The Natural Resources Defense Counsel filed the case in late 1992 on behalf of two environmental organizations and two faculty members at the University of California at Irvine. The suit sought to invalidate the sale of 26 acres of university property.

Alameda County Superior Court Judge James L. Smith declined in February 1993 to invalidate the sale. However, Smith ruled that supplemental environmental documentation should be required regarding the impact of corridor construction on 1.7 acres of the property.

Earlier this week, the California Fourth District Court of Appeal set aside Smith's ruling.

The Transportation Corridor Agencies, which is the umbrella organization overseeing toll road construction in the county, and the regents challenged Smith's decision on grounds that the environmental impact report prepared for the San Joaquin Hills corridor was adequate.

In a written opinion, Appellate Justice John Wallin agreed with that reasoning.

"Unquestionably, the subject parcel was subjected to an in-depth environmental assessment in the corridor [environmental impact report], and its sale is consistent" with a long range development plan, Wallin wrote.

Moreover, the corridor's alignment was known before the environmental impact report was certified, Wallin wrote.

Since there has been no substantial change in the proposed alignment, "no additional environmental analysis is either warranted or required by law," Wallin wrote.

The dispute involves a small portion of the overall 15-mile San Joaquin Hills toll road, which is under construction and was financed with more than $1 billion of toll road revenue bonds sold early last year.

The toll road agency estimated that it would need about 12 months if required to prepare a supplemental environmental impact for the university property. The agency had said, however, than an adverse decision should not have resulted in a "material" effect on the toll road's construction schedule because work on other sections could proceed while more environmental documentation was prepared.

The three-judge appellate panel's decision "means that construction activities at the 1.7-acre site are now restrained only by a federal court injunction," the Transportation Corridor Agencies said in release. "Judge Linda H. McLaughlin, the federal judge who issued that injunction, had earlier indicated that she would reconsider that portion of the injunction affecting the 1.7 acres if the status of the state court injunction changed."

Late last summer, McLaughlin issued an order that let the San Joaquin Hills agency start construction on both ends of the toll road.

An environmental coalition asked McLaughlin to halt construction on the entire project while a legal challenge is pending that questions the legality of various environmental approvals. The judge instead agreed to grant a preliminary injunction blocking construction on a five-mile segment in the middle of the project. The case is still pending.

In a ruling in yet another case this week, a federal judge in Washington, D.C. said the U.S. Department of the Interior erred during a process that led tot he listing of the California gnatcatcher as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

The Southern California Building Industry Association and the Transportation Corridor Agencies had challenged the handling of the listing in a 1992 lawsuit. Transportation officials became involved out of concern that the endangered listing could be used to hamper construction of various toll roads.

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