They'd Pave Over Reagan's Park
Most Californians see their state parks as places of special natural or historic significance. They protect them by law -- forever.
This will change if road builders in Orange County get their way. They have decided that the state park at San Onofre would be better as a toll road. They want to pave it, destroying not only one of the few remaining stretches of Southern California coastal wild land but the fundamental principle of California's state park system: We set aside lands -- ancient redwood groves, wildflower-covered desert buttes, Southern California's iconic beaches -- to protect them, not to warehouse them for later development.
And there's a bonus. They make money! About 80 million visitors from around the world come to explore California's 278 state parks each year, spending $2.6 billion directly and adding $4 billion in indirect contributions, according to park system estimates.
Gov. Ronald Reagan established San Onofre State Beach in 1971 because he knew its value. It has become one of the five most-visited state parks in California, hosting swimmers, campers, kayakers, birders, fishermen, off-duty Marines, bicyclists and sunbathers. Top surfers compete at its world-renowned Trestles surf breaks. The park contains seven archeological sites, including a Juaneno Indian village. Seven threatened or endangered species live within the park, and it protects significant portions of San Mateo Creek, one of the last relatively unspoiled watersheds in Southern California.
None of this seems to interest the road builders (known as the Transportation Corridor Agencies, or TCA). They want to "connect" undeveloped southeastern Orange County to Interstate 5 in northern San Diego County, bisecting San Onofre State Beach from top to bottom with a huge highway. This massive swath of pavement would force the Parks Department to "relinquish" the majority of the inland wilderness, including the popular San Mateo public campground.
The loss of this coastal haven cannot be compensated. There's no land left. And -- here's the kicker -- like any major highway in an unspoiled area, the toll road would attract large-scale development to wild lands; generate contaminated runoff, visual blight and noise; and disrupt the natural flow of the creek that maintains the beach and surf breaks. There is no effective mitigation for such damage.
