A devastating car accident killed three of four siblings, all age 13 or younger, Monday morning in Malibu, when the vehicle they were riding in, driven by their mother, slammed into the back of a parked big rig on Pacific Coast Highway at 5:50 a.m.

Two of the children, Virginia Alfaro, 13, seated in the front right passenger side, and Alexis Alfaro, 11, seated in the center rear, died at the scene, said Sheriff’s Deputy Robert Evans of the Lost Hills / Malibu Sheriff’s Station.

The third child, seated in the right rear, Andrea Alfaro, 12, died later at 4:45 p.m. at UCLA Medical Center after she was air-lifted to the hospital. The mother, Maria Guerrero, 34, and her surviving child, Luis Alfaro, 9, were taken from the scene by ambulance, with minor injuries.

The deadly accident occurred on PCH about 200 yards north of Carbon Canyon Road.

The Oxnard family of five was returning from a weekend vacation in Rosarita Beach, Mexico, a more than five-hour drive by freeway.

Evans said Virginia was crushed as the white Isuzu Rodeo hit the approximately 30,000 pound semi at an estimated speed of 45 to 60 miles per hour. The children on the right side were trapped in the mangled steel of the Isuzu.

It took local firefighters from L.A. County Fire Station 70 more than 10 minutes to extricate each person.

Traffic accident investigators are trying to assess how and why the accident occurred. There were no skid marks on the road where the vehicle, reportedly north bound on PCH, crashed into the truck.

When the mother was at the hospital, she said there was a red car in the area, according to Evans, which may have contributed to the accident. Investigators did find red paint on the Isuzu, said Sgt. Kevin Mauch of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, in earlier interviews.

Investigators are also looking into the possibility the mother fell asleep while driving.

Evans said he believes the mother may have fallen asleep behind the wheel because of “the type of injuries–rather the lack of injuries to her.” He said her injuries were minor.

“When they are in a relaxed state, they do not react. That is usually what saves them from serious injuries.”

However, in an L.A. Times interview, Mauch said that Guerrero was not killed because of the angle of the impact, which penetrated deeper into the Isuzu on the passenger side.

Evans said the injuries were so severe because the vehicle hit the truck head-on, on the right passenger side, causing its front end and hood to push and peel back.

Reportedly, each passenger was wearing a seat belt and the air bags inflated. However, the impact was too hard to save their lives.

The distraught driver of the legally parked truck was asleep in its sleeper box, which is behind the front seat, waiting to make a delivery for a local business that was not open at the time. He was uninjured.

The Sheriff’s Department is asking for anyone who may have witnessed the accident, and if another car was involved, to come forward. Witnesses can call the Lost Hills/Malibu Sheriff’s Station at 310.456.6652.

Although those at a recent emergency council meeting on Feb. 15 said they thought they could work together on a bond issue, the process of trying to mold together a group with sometimes conflicting agendas almost immediately ran into a serious hurdle. A couple of members of the Malibu Coastal Land Conservancy (MCLC) went to a meeting in Long Beach and asked for grant money for a wetland in the Civic Center, causing some friction.

“I’m flabbergasted, ” said Mayor Tom Hasse, referring to two seemingly contradictory positions taken by the MCLC on the same day.

In Malibu, Gil Segal, Steve Uhring and others from the MCLC went before the council on Thursday morning indicating they could work with the ball parks/community center people on the proposed $15 million bond issue. They also said that delaying the bond ballot initiative until November was alright with them because they agreed they need time to build public support and to come to a consensus and fine tune the bond issue. Most everyone left the council meeting happy, thinking maybe both sides, the open space/wetlands people and the ball parks/community center people, could get together about what the bond money would be used for — meaning that there was probably some consensus on the use of the Civic Center area.

However, at about the same time as the council meeting, Ozzie Silna and Dan Gottlieb, both major movers and shakers in the MCLC, were down in Long Beach before the Southern California Wetlands Recovery Project. They were putting in an application asking for money to purchase two parcels of land for a potential wetland in the Civic Center area. One 16.2 acre parcel is owned by Wave Property Inc., of Pepperdine University, and the other 16.8 acre parcel is known as the Tosh Yamaguchi properties.

When interviewed, Silna said he didn’t see it at all the way the mayor saw it. He told The Malibu Times there was no conflict because it was pretty much understood by all the Civic Center was not the appropriate place for ball fields. He added that the MCLC had been applying for wetland grants for a couple of years now, and the big hang up had always been that there were apparently no willing sellers, which is a typical grant requirement. Once the mayor had announced there might be some willing sellers, said Silna, the Southern California Wetland Restoration Project called and suggested they get down to the meeting and get in an application for grant money so they could hold a place in line, if the money became available. Silna said: “I see no conflict. If we get more outside money it frees other money for ball fields.”

The problem is, in applying for the dollars, they must put a lead agency onto the application. The MCLC listed the City of Malibu (potentially) as that lead agency and also listed as among the supporting agencies and groups the California State Parks and others. To date, neither the city nor the state have specifically endorsed either the Pepperdine property or the Yamaguchi property for a wetlands.

” If they (MCLC) want to work together they have to get the permission of the city if they’re going to speak for the city,” said Hasse

The documents the MCLC submitted to the Wetlands Recovery Project said:

” … if we don’t act now this restoration, recreation, and water cleansing site will be covered by impending commercial development, and we will have lost these critical options forever…” To some observers it would appear to indicate that their goal is still just a wetland in the central Malibu Civic Center area.

However, in a fax we received from Gottlieb, he described their application as nothing more than a placeholder suggestion to the Southern California Wetland Recovery Project. In his fax, Gottleib said, “A placeholder suggestion is only a suggestion to start looking into a project (pending appraisals, agency and municipality buy-in and ‘gazillions’ of other items and clearances.) It’s a positive way to put a project on the radar screen — that’s all … At absolutely no time did I represent the city. In point of fact, I went on the record stating that I’m not representing the city …”

Malibuites recently voiced their concerns about trail usage conflicts among hikers, equestrians and mountain bikes, and had an opportunity to share ideas about how their side of the Santa Monica Mountains will be managed in the future at a recent meeting with the National Parks Service (NPS).

The NPS is working on a new General Management Plan (GMP) for the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area (SMMNRA).

“There are different strategies to accommodate them all and the plan hopes to address and mitigate these issues,” said Arthur E. Eck, Superintendent of the SMMNRA, of residents’ concerns.

The three agencies responsible for the area, NPS, the California State Parks and the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, have drafted a new plan that offers a combination of preferred alternatives. These alternatives combine five approaches to manage the SMMNRA recreation area throughout the next 15 to 20 years.

Several meetings took place recently in various areas near the Santa Monica Mountains to receive comments from the public on the plan, which NPS drafted based on information acquired over three years.

“It’s a broad road map to the future for how we will manage the SMMNRA,” said Ray Sauvagot, chief of planning for NPS.

“By and large, everyone at the Malibu meeting gave constructive input,” said Eck, of the Feb. 8 meeting at Point Dume Marine Science Elementary School.

Residents also said they would prefer that the beaches west of Zuma and as far as Point Mugu be identified and managed for lower intensity use rather than more. These beaches tend to be wild and parks should try to keep them undeveloped, said residents.

Some people also urged that there be more land acquisition. It is a suggestion that is already on the agenda, said Eck.

The priority for acquisition is based on wildlife needs, cultural resources, scenic matters and people resources, he said.

When discussing potential Malibu acquisitions, Eck said the department has a policy not to discuss specifics about certain properties they hope to acquire in the future.

“I hope we will be able to make some announcements in a few months,” he said.

However, Eck did confirm that funding exists and that there is land in the mountains above Malibu that need protection. Eck also explained that funding for acquisitions comes from federal oil lease revenues.

“A lot of oil comes from land owned by the American people and this is a way the department has found to give back to the general public,” he said.

Generally, general plan recommendations are primarily related to experiences people will have when they visit the mountains, said Sauvagot.

“We are trying to cover a wide area around the mountains to get input.”

Certain areas are better suited for lower use, which primarily involve hiking, biking and horseback riding, while other areas can have low impact usage that includes camping and a more intense use of resources. The higher intense uses can include parking lots, restrooms and visitor facilities, such as a visitor center or a small indigenous museum, like the one at Malibu Creek State Park.

Historically, the SMMNRA is one of the world’s largest urban recreation areas. It is home to significant archeological and cultural sites, and provides a haven for more than 450 animal species, including 50 that are endangered. In 1978, Congress created the SMMNRA and granted authority to the National Park Service to manage it.

The area’s first General Management Plan was completed in 1982. NPS is revising the plan because the population growth in nearby Los Angeles has changed dramatically and environmental impacts must be re-examined.

The draft plan states: “The purpose of the General Management Plan is to plot a course into the future; one that ensures the SMMNRA is preserved for all people for all times.”

And managing the Santa Monica Mountains can be a tricky task because so many organizations have an interest in them. From the Coastal Commission to the Mountain Restoration Trust, 65 to 70 organizations have a stake in the mountains.

While the department works on the plan’s details, those who are interested can have a look at what is already drafted, and give more input until May 1, on the NPS Web site at www.nationalparks.org.

“We do what we can to ensure that if we don’t use these views in this particular plan, we keep them for later on,” said Eck.

The City Council met hurriedly at 8 a.m. last Thursday morning to discuss a proposed $15 million bond issue for the June 5, 2001 ballot. The meeting had been called on short notice because the council was up against a deadline. Although the council has not made a final decision on the bond issue, if it was ultimately decided that it wanted to go ahead and get the measure onto the June ballot, the bond had to be introduced first as an ordinance, no later than Feb. 17, or, legally, the council couldn’t put it onto the ballot.

Equally touchy is the law requiring a two-thirds voter approval of the bond issue, which led some insiders to speculate that, if the various factions were split and couldn’t get together on the issue, the bond had little chance of passage. In a poll conducted for the city some time ago, only 58 percent to 59 percent of the electorate polled said they would vote for a $15 million bond issue. This meant the bond campaign would, under the best of circumstances, probably be very tight to get the two-thirds approval.

At the regular Monday night council meeting on Feb. 12, it appeared there was a split as to whether or not an early election date in June was a good or bad idea. More fundamentally, the concern was, if it passed, what was the bond money going to be used for — ballfields, wetlands or something else. It was apparent there were two or even three separate factions with different agendas that wanted the bond issue, but weren’t clear what they wanted the money for. Playing fields, land for a community center, open space and wetlands all had been suggested in earlier discussions.

But, apparently, between the first council meeting and the emergency meeting, the group, or rather, several groups that want the bond issue, had met again. They told the council that, after discussing it, they had come to a consensus that the better plan would be to wait until November. This way they could take their time, meet with all interested groups and see if they can build a community consensus on how much money people would be willing to vote for and how it would be used.

Several on the council looked visibly relieved that they weren’t going to have to make a quick decision, one in which a number of their supporters might have been on different sides of the question.

The two most apparent factions were the Malibu Coastal Land Conservancy (MCLC) group, which includes Gil Segal, Steve Uhring, Tami Clark, Patt Healy, and the other group, which includes Laureen Sills, Deirdre Roney, Mona Loo, Georgianna McBurney, Carl and Carol Randall, and a number of others. In the last election, many had backed different candidates, but there didn’t seem to be any rancor in front of the council on Feb. 15, which, for an issue as potentially explosive as this, was highly unusual.

The message that several of the speakers, including Loo, Sills, and Roney, delivered to the council was decidedly upbeat. They said the group had a very frank and fruitful meeting the night before, talked openly about some of their differences and found some common ground. They felt they needed more facts and more time to work together.

The council suggested they remain as an independent group, but that they should also keep their process as open and public as possible and announce their meetings in the newspapers. And then, ultimately, they should come before the council and tell what the group or groups want in the bond issue.

In the interim, which is between now and November, several members of the council indicated there could be no development deal approved because anything that the council agreed on would still have to go through an Environmental Impact Review process. This process couldn’t be completed before November, because, as Interim City Manager Christi Hogin indicated, any EIR has to include summer traffic counts.

Mayor Pro Tem Joan House cautioned that we’re only going to get one shot at this bond issue so we had better get it right.

The new citizens ad hoc bond group, which has not yet chosen a name for itself, has set the next meeting for March 1, 6 p.m. at Serra Retreat, which is the large religious facility at the top of Serra Road.

A walk into Solstice Canyon, off Corral Canyon near the Beaurivage restaurant on Pacific Coast Highway, may reveal deer, quail and bobcats to hikers along the stream that runs throughout the canyon.

But missing is the southern steelhead trout, which was declared endangered more than three years ago by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). Efforts are underway to restore southern steelhead to Solstice Canyon, and although the project may signal clear water today, it soon may come to connote turbulent times as property rights advocates foresee potentially serious threats to landowners.

While the species was spotted there in the early 1970s, biologists say it hasn’t been since the 1940s that the fish actually had a healthy, sustaining population.

Solstice is the first of a number of Malibu area creeks where multi-million-dollar political and environmental decisions are being made by federal, state, and local agencies. While these are on-the-record decisions ostensibly made to preserve the newly endangered fish, they also are decisions that may have a variety of much further-reaching effects over roads, bridges, land-use, housing and lifestyles.

In a series of stories, The Malibu Times will examine efforts to bring back the Southern California steelhead and how this could affect the lives of Malibu flora and fauna, as well as the people who also have come to be a part of the canyon habitat for more than 100 years.

Solstice Canyon is among the many Malibu creeks that were historic homes of the southern steelhead, a species unique in Southern California and southward. It has been a long time since anyone actually has seen a steelhead in the Solstice area pools that trickle into the sea, but some previous residents, such as Ron Rindge, still remember seeing steelhead as they played in the streams and shallow ponds years ago.

Truly, Solstice Canyon is among many of Malibu’s delightful glens and glades. So who could argue with an attempt to restore these special fish to their native breeding grounds?

“There is an intrinsic value to have this species here,” said Ray Sauvajot, chief of Planning, Science and Resource Management with the U.S. National Park Service. “The presence of steelhead tells us that our ecosystem is in good shape and humans depend on this ecosystem.”

Property rights advocates, however, are among those who point out that although the initial impact may seem minimal, these efforts are a harbinger to future, more severe restrictions.

For example, the California Department of Parks and Recreation already is spearheading a project to examine how steelhead can be introduced further upstream along Malibu Creek. Under discussion is the potential removal of the 100-by 80-foot Rindge Dam, erected in 1929 two miles into Malibu Creek, an endeavor that could cost more than $40 million.

Also, in previous years, after the 1993 fires and the destruction of the bridge on PCH over Malibu Creek, rebuilding efforts were stymied because of the endangered tidewater goby. The governor had to sign emergency waivers and decrees to enable the reconstruction of the bridge.

And because steelhead have been sighted in other local streams, hundreds of homes in or near the streams’ watershed areas could be subjected to Environmental Protection Act regulations. Malibu Creek is the single largest watershed within the Santa Monica Mountain range with thousands of residences nearby. Yet, Environmental Protection Act regulations say that once an animal is declared endangered, virtually nothing can be done to disturb the animal or its critical habitat.

Because action has only begun to occur in Malibu, enforcement situations have not yet developed. But in Oregon and Washington State, property rights organizations are well familiar with consequences.

Tim Harris, counsel for Pacific Legal Foundation in Bellevue, Washington, explains that since the coho salmon was declared endangered, restrictions have been placed on local residents including prohibitions of lighting over a bridge that could disturb salmon and spawning.

“But the terms ‘disturbing’ or ‘harming’ could apply to a number of things,” Harris continued. “The building of a structure near the watershed, driving across a river, playing in a creek, fertilizing lawns, using gopher poison, termiting a house, washing a car, . . .”

NMFS officials say they are not planning to be in the business of serving as “carwash police;” however, the agency has been flexing its muscles in Oregon and Washington to protect coho and chinook salmon.

Last September, the Wall Street Journal told how NMFS veto power halted $6 billion in construction work on I-405 following the expenditure of $6 million in plans to come up with four different proposals that would accommodate an expected 250 percent increase in traffic over the next 20 years. NMFS rejected all the plans.

In a North Macadam urban renewal district, the City of Portland had planned to bring jobs and housing into a 130-acre parcel along the Willamette River. However, when NMFS ordered 200 foot buffers along the river instead of the 100-foot setbacks anticipated by the city, developers said the stricter regulations would make the project only “marginally feasible.”

And in Clackamas County, construction of a bridge over Clackamas Town Center was halted because of concern that a portion of the bridge construction, which went into Mount Scott Creek (a tributary of the Willamette where endangered Willamette River steelhead live), might cause rushing water to churn up sediments that would choke protected runs of the fish.

Although biologists from a variety of federal, wildlife, and environmental organizations point out that some small populations of southern steelhead can still be found in Malibu Creek and other local streambeds, Sauvajot says that the southern steelhead has essentially disappeared from almost all of its historic range from Point Conception to Baja California.

“It would take a lot to get the fish to the point where it was not considered endangered anymore,” says Sauvajot. “There are only a handful of streams that could realistically function to provide habitat for this species.”

Yet, most biologists and environmentalists agree that Solstice creek is an ideal place to start bringing back the fish. For one thing, Solstice would require little more than a few minor environmental assessments before steps could be taken to restore the fish.

Sauvajot is confident these environmental reports would not hold up the eventual project.

Secondly, most of the land surrounding Solstice is part of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, which is governed by the National Park Service. With few immediate neighbors to the stream, there would be little initial reaction from residents worried about how their lifestyles, activities, property maintenance or expansion decisions might harm the fish.

And estimates to restore the relatively pristine stream to a condition that would foster steelhead are relatively low at approximately $300,000. The work would be conducted in collaboration with Caltrans on behalf of the City of Malibu, with permitting from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and would involve refurbishing a metal culvert channeling stream water under Pacific Coast Highway, building two bridges over roads currently crossing the streambed, and removing several stone obstacles within the stream itself.

Today’s steelhead trout, which is commonly found from the Monterey area northward through Alaska, is a migratory form of the rainbow trout, hatching in a stream or river, then swimming to the ocean, where it lives, feeds, and grows, then returns back to its original river to spawn. But unlike Pacific salmon, some steelhead may make a return to their spawning grounds several times in a lifetime. The fish gets its name from the cold, steel-blue coloring of its back the first time it enters a river to spawn.

Some biologists, such as researcher Jennifer Neilson, believe Malibu’s southern steelhead species is especially interesting because it was a biological forerunner to those that populate the Pacific Northwest.

Efforts to protect endangered fish can occur in any stream where the fish might be expected to be present, and already local environmentalists and biologists say that steelhead are not limited to Solstice and Malibu Creek.

They have been seen in Ventura’s Santa Clara River and the Arroyo Sequit. And Margo Murman, executive director of the California state Resource Conservation District’s Division 9, explains that when a fish is restored in one creek, the species often turn up in other streams as well.

“A steelhead project would be promising because they have done some migration southward already,” she said. “They’re already in Topanga Creek. It’s a natural phenomenon.”

Next: A look at efforts underway to restore steelhead to Malibu Creek.