Public comments are being accepted NOW through Monday, August 4th regarding plans to build a 16-mile I-5 alternative through San Onofre State Beach in southern California.

The proposed toll road extension of Route 241 would run parallel to I-5, to relieve congestion on that Corridor of the Future highway. Permission for the plan was recently denied by the California Coastal Commission, a decision that the Transportation Corridor Agencies of Orange County appealed to the Secretary of Commerce. Because a federal agency is now responsible for deciding if the road should be permitted, you do not have to be a California resident to comment.

Send comments by email to gcos.comment@noaa.gov, or mail them to :

Thomas Street
NOAA Office of the General Counsel for Ocean Services
1305 East-West Highway, Room 6111
Silver Spring, MD 20910

General inquiries about the comment process should be directed to the NOAA office at (301) 713-2967.

The Coastal Commission rejected the road plan based in part on conclusions that it would destroy 66 acres of critical wetlands and other habitat including the last coastal habitat of the arroyo toad, placing the Pacific pocket mouse at imminent risk of extinction. The road would also devastate the sacred indigenous (Acjachemen and Juaneño) site of Panhe.

For more information on reasons to oppose the toll road, visit Friends of the Foothills or SaveSanOnofre.com.