EHL Newsletter, Winter 2009 Vol 19 No1

On December 18, 2008, the Dept. of Commerce denied the Orange County toll road agency’s appeal of the California Coastal Commission’s decision against this road through San Onofre State Beach. This was momentous step toward saving the park and its wildlife.

EHL, the County of Orange, and the Rancho Mission Viejo Company reached agreement with the City of Rancho Santa Margarita to permanently protect the vast majority of parkland whose disputed ownership was the subject of litigation.

In its first foray into the Central Coast, EHL has joined forces with San Luis Obispo-based North County Watch to save the pristine 14,000-acre Santa Margarita Ranch from development.

Erosion of rural, habitat, and agricultural land to sprawl threatens to undo the promise of the General Plan, adopted in 2003, to provide certainty for both open space and development.

Flukes

Watch for the flukes

That's our skipper's cry
and one, with held breath
we await the whale

EHL appeared in the news media with quotes on the Foothill toll road, litigation in San Luis Obispo, a legal settlement in Orange County, and on the role of climate change in habitat plans.