Caltrans releasesnew I-5 Environmental Impact Reports
Steve Goetsch
To Citizens Against Freeway Expansion:
Hello again! It has been a while since we have communicated with you. On Wednesday of last week Caltrans released a Supplemental Environmental Impact Report to add to their previous Draft Environmental Impact Report (July 2010) on the expansion of I-5 in North San Diego County. It is NOT the response to the thousands of comments we sent in by the deadline in the fall of 2010. That will come some time next year.
This report releases 3 studies on the Batiquitos, Buena Vista and San Elijo lagoons. Basically Caltrans claims that wider bridges will promote better tidal flushing of the lagoons. You may read the reports here:
http://www.dot.ca.gov/dist11/Env_docs/I-5NCC/5NCSupplemental.html
The report does NOT discuss the critical San Dieguito Lagoon, where Southern California Edison recently completed $90 million in environmental mitigation related to the fish kills at the SONGS nuclear plant. In my telephone conversation with Caltrans I learned last spring that they will plan to expand I-5 between Del Mar Heights Road and Via de la Valle by either 2 lanes or 4 lanes (I'm not sure) which means that the roadbed going across the lagoon would have to be widened by 22 feet or 44 feet, respectively. One can only imagine how many thousands of truckloads of dirt it would take to complete such a monstrous project! I was assured that they could do it "within their footprint" meaning they claim they would not take away more of the lagoon. I remain skeptical.
The I-5 project I am told is fully funded. I am told it will NOT be impacted by the lawsuit filed against the $200 billion 40 year SANDAG RTP 2050 construction project. Both the SANDAG Board of Directors and Caltrans believe the proposed expansion of I-5 is a "done deal". The original DEIR did not even mention the topics of air pollution (San Diego is 6th worst in the US according to the American Lung Association) or greenhouse gas emission. We will see if their response next year takes on these profoundly important topics
To be continued....
Steve Goetsch
Citizens Against Freeway Expansion