Pressure from environmentalists and legislators prompted the California Transportation Commission on Tuesday to withdraw a proposal to divert $20 million from a fund used to build bike paths, restore wetlands and create trails.
The commission had proposed using the money for transportation projects in rural counties.
"I must have received 500 faxes," commission chairman and Moreno Valley developer Bob Wolf said at the meeting in Riverside's City Council Chambers.
The state Environmental Enhancement Mitigation Program uses gas tax money to finance environmental projects associated with transportation programs. The commission wanted to confine expenditures on the environment to a $40-million-a-year federal program.
Such a move, however, might jeopardize trail building projects and wetland protection, which the federal money may not cover, environmentalists said. The loss of the state funds, they said, also would undercut attempts to beautify highways and nearby lands.
Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa, D-Los Angeles, wrote to the commission earlier this month, saying the proposal would result in a "significant reduction of environmental projects."
Instead, the commission will leave the program alone and fund rural county transportation agencies with $10 million from the federally funded program.
The compromise was endorsed by pro-environmental groups at the meeting. "This is the best proposal we have heard so far," said Laura Cohen, an officer with the Rails to Trails Conservancy, a nonprofit organization advocating development of public trails along railroad and other transportation corridors.
"It sounds positive," said Bill Havert, executive director of the Coachella Valley Mountains Conservancy, a state government agency that manages public land.
The program has funded several programs in Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
This year, the state program has earmarked $1 million for purchase of a parcel off Highway 91 at Coal Canyon in Orange County and $245,000 for landscaping of the Domenigoni Parkway median near the Domenigoni Reservoir in Southern Riverside County.
In 1995, $200,000 was used to acquire 160 acres around the southern portion of Baldwin Lake in San Bernardino County to protect open land from development.
In 1994, $335,000 was spent to acquire 50 acres at Mystic Lake in Riverside County as part of a plan to create habitat for the Pacific Flyway migratory bird route. The acquisition was part of the environmental restoration plan attached to the widening of Highway 79.
The Environmental Enhancement Mitigation Program is scheduled to expire in two years unless the Legislature continues it. Three attempts to extend funding have failed, but environmental groups have vowed to try again.
"We have such a desperate need for mitigation measures," said Jane Block, a member of the Endangered Habitats League, a nonprofit environmental planning organization in Riverside, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and San Diego counties. "It's better to take what we can now and hope we can do better in the long run."
Published 9/23/1998