O.C. tollway could spoil burial site - The ancient village, mentioned in mission logs from the 1770s, abuts the planned turnpike extension near San Clemente.

Robles is a member of the Juaneño Band of Mission Indians.

The valley, where her ancestors lived 4,000 years ago in an ancient Acjachemen Nation village called Panhe, is threatened by a proposed six-lane toll road next to the site that could unearth human remains and damage a sacred spot that Juaneños have visited for generations.

"To Indian people, we go to these places because they're our Vatican, our Mecca," said the San Clemente resident. We "go for spiritual renewal."

Juaneños have formed a coalition to save Panhe and plan to urge the California Coastal Commission to stop the proposed Foothill South toll road at its October meeting.

It's the latest impediment to the proposed 16-mile toll road extension from Oso Parkway to I-5 that would cut a path through San Onofre State Beach, next to the village site.

The area, which straddles the San Diego-Orange county border off Cristianitos Road, is on the state Native American Heritage Commission's register of sacred sites in California.

A year ago, the state attorney general filed a lawsuit to stop the road on behalf of the Heritage Commission.

Although the village is long gone, the site is frequently used as a gathering area for songfests, and hundreds of Native American remains found in Orange and San Diego counties have been reburied there.

"Can you imagine putting a freeway overpass over Arlington Cemetery?" said Patricia Martz, a Cal State Los Angeles anthropology professor.

Martz, president of the California Cultural Resource Preservation Alliance, said toll road planners ignored several archaeological sites and omitted Panhe's sacred status in its environmental planning documents.

Toll road planners dispute these contentions and emphasized the road's importance to the region's ability to cope with mounting traffic and congestion.

"If you were to compare this road to other projects, it has been the most studied road in the state, if not the nation," Lance MacLean, a Mission Viejo councilman who chairs the Foothill/Eastern Transportation Corridor Agency that manages the 241 toll road.

Recently, a grass fire in Mission Viejo nearly shut down Interstate 5, "the only north-south route" in southern Orange County, he said.

"We need alternative routes, and the toll road provides one."