DEL MAR, Calif. -- The decision to reject a proposed a toll road through San Onofre State Beach Park between Orange and San Diego counties might be appealed, a spokeswoman for the agency handling the project said Thursday.

"We have the option to appeal to the Secretary of Commerce," said Lisa Telles of the Transportation Corridor Agency. "Traffic is going to continue to grow through south Orange County and we need to address it."

At the end of a heated, 14-hour hearing Wednesday at the Del Mar Fairgrounds, the California Coastal Commission voted 8-2 to side with environmentalists, surfers and others who said the extension would destroy a large area of environmentally sensitive habitat and wetland.

A decision on whether to appeal the decision will probably be made at the TCA board's next meeting Feb. 14, Telles said.

The TCA, which is overseeing the $875 million project and runs the toll road system in Orange County, chose the proposed 16-mile route over widening Interstate 5, saying that option would lead to the loss of 830 homes, 250 businesses and 4,000 jobs.

Sarah Christie of the Coastal Commission said such an appeal could take up to a year and that the TCA "would have to get in line behind appeals filed by other states" on their projects.

But, she said, "It's within their right to do that."

The commission, she said, was reviewing the project under the authority it has to weigh its federal consistency with the state's Coastal Management Plan.

Once that question is resolved through appeal, the TCA would still have to come back to the Coastal Commission to sign off on the project's compatibility with state coastal protections.

The federal and state jurisdictional issues are usually combined and determined at one hearing, Christie said, but the TCA opted to have them heard separately.

Telles said the TCA "is strongly in support of completing the 241 toll road."

The agency would turn over the project to another agency if the only alternative was widening I-5.

There is now only one traffic artery at that point, and when it becomes jammed, vehicles trying to get around are forced into winding and hilly terrain in San Clemente and San Juan Capistrano.

"There's no other way," she said, adding that merely widening the I-5 would not address the bottleneck issue because of ever burgeoning traffic.

But those arguments were dealt a stinging rebuke during Wednesday's hearing.

In finding the proposed toll road extension inconsistent with state law, commission members heeded their staff's recommendations.

"This is the most significant project to come before this commission since the San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant in 1974," Peter M. Douglas, the commission's executive director, said at the start of the hearing. "It is most significant because of the large area of environmentally sensitive habitat, wetlands and other public resources it will destroy."

Douglas said the proposed toll road clearly fails to meet many policies that govern development along the coast.

"This toll road project is not only inconsistent with the law, it also raises fundamental questions about what kind of environmental and social future we want for our coastal communities, our families, our children and theirs," Douglas said.

Environmentalists said a measure of degradation that can never be reversed would follow the path of Foothill South if it turns through the state beach, which is visited by some 2.4 million people each year.

The road would have a major impact on the beach and its famous surf breaks, including the renowned Trestles, opponents said.