California Department Of Transportation

It's the freeway controversy that just won't quit. The fight over whether to finish the 710 Freeway -- which stops just short of South Pasadena -- has been going on for more than half a century, with the records in a 1998 federal court case so voluminous that they filled some 500 cardboard file boxes.

The Knights of Columbus have adopted a highway. So have the Japanese American Citizens League, biker groups, Indian casinos and the International House of Pancakes. Now add the San Diego Minutemen. Caltrans has granted an Adopt-A-Highway stretch of Interstate 5 to the ardent foes of illegal immigration -- and not just any stretch. The two miles of freeway the Minutemen will be charged with beautifying include the U.S. Border Patrol Checkpoint near San Clemente.

A soon-to-be-released Caltrans audit will assert that Placentia improperly spent as much as $36 million in state funds to pay for an ambitious rail-corridor project that drove the tiny north Orange County city to the brink of bankruptcy, state and municipal officials said Wednesday.

Millions of gallons of polluted runoff from state highways in Los Angeles and Ventura counties will be prevented from contaminating local waters and beaches every year under a court agreement reached Friday between Caltrans and environmentalists. Caltrans vowed to reduce storm water pollution by 20% below 1994 levels along more than 1,000 miles of state highway in the region, according to the agreement in federal court with the Natural Resources Defense Council and Santa Monica BayKeeper.

Placentia officials vowed Friday to fight claims by Caltrans that the small north Orange County city owes the state more than $36 million. The money was spent for a controversial rail corridor project that devastated the town's finances. "Our understanding of the contract is that the state has no legal right to ask for money back unless there is an erroneous or mistaken payment," Mayor Scott Nelson said during a news conference at City Hall.

Caltrans has given the San Diego Minutemen a new stretch of road to clean up for the Adopt-A-Highway program, moving the group that fights illegal immigration from Interstate 5 near the U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint to a quieter, less visible state highway. Caltrans officials say the change was made because of safety concerns.

Caltrans has abruptly suspended its popular Adopt-A-Highway program several months after an anti-illegal immigration group sued the state agency for discrimination after it was forced to move its stretch of highway farther from a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint along Interstate 5 in San Diego County.

An anti-illegal-immigration group's Adopt-a-Highway sign was re-posted this week on Interstate 5 near the Border Patrol checkpoint in San Clemente after a federal judge ruled that it did not pose a danger to the public. State transit officials had moved the San Diego Minutemen's sign to a less-busy highway in eastern San Diego County, saying they were concerned that it would become a gathering place for protesters and clog the busy interstate.

Caltrans is auditing $36 million in state funds given to Placentia's controversial OnTrac project -- the troubled rail plan that has pushed the northern Orange County city to the brink of bankruptcy. Department officials said they were reviewing OnTrac's funding to determine if it was properly spent. They declined to comment in detail, saying it was Caltrans policy not to discuss ongoing audits. The inquiry began in 2005. "They are looking at the whole thing," said City Councilman Russell J.

Desperate to raise cash to make room for more cars on the freeways, California's main road-building agency is wielding an unexpected weapon: the state's environmental laws. Caltrans, long foiled by lawsuits accusing it of recklessly plowing over the habitat of endangered species, polluting the air and contaminating waterways, is now filing its own legal challenges.