Most Decry, a Few Salute Sabotage of Power Lines : Energy: Residents of Watsonville and Santa Cruz have passionate opinions on vandals who knocked out electricity.

The lights were back on Tuesday in Santa Cruz County, where self-styled environmentalists claimed responsibility for downing electrical transmission lines that left 95,000 residents without power.

But no one was celebrating.

Authorities have no suspects in Sunday and Monday’s sabotage incidents.

And to area residents--already on edge from a spasm of 14 small earthquakes that hit the region last Wednesday--the outages were an unwelcome reminder of the hundreds of aftershocks that Watsonville and Santa Cruz, the two major towns in the county, endured in the months after the Oct. 17, 1989, 7.1-magnitude Loma Prieta temblor.

“A lot of frustrated people are saying, ‘You find these guys. You ought to string ‘em up,’ ” Watsonville Police Chief Terry Medina said as he drove an unmarked car through the town’s still earthquake-battered downtown area.

Even those who support the alleged environmental goals of the people claiming responsibility for the sabotage--Earth Night Action Group, as it termed itself in letters to the news media--are irritated. The group apparently used a hand saw to cut through two wooden transmission poles on Sunday. Then, early Monday morning, a 100-foot steel tower was toppled.

“It was a good idea, but it was a real pain for a lot of people,” said Rob Edmonds, 21, a restaurant employee and environmental activist, as he waited for a bus in downtown Santa Cruz.

Ron Rutkowski, spokesman for Pacific Gas & Electric--which owns the power lines, said Tuesday that the damage probably would be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. He said these were the first acts of sabotage against the company in the area since six substations were blown up in the 1970s by a group calling itself the New World Liberation Front.

Though some members of the environmental group Earth First!, which denies any ties to the Earth Night Action Group, had hinted that more sabotage was to come, no new incidents were reported by Tuesday afternoon, according authorities.

Sheriff’s Sgt. Mike Lillis said investigators are not sure the Earth Nightgroup actually exists.

“We don’t see any connection with Earth First!,” added FBI spokesman Duke Diedrich. “The FBI doesn’t think any responsible environmental group would be involved in such actions. . . . We think we have a small group of thugs.”

The FBI is investigating the sabotage under provisions of the federal Hazardous Liquid Pipeline Safety Act of 1979, which requires federal pursuit of anyone who “knowingly and willingly damages the property of an energy facility.”

Diedrich said handwritten notes left by the group could be valuable evidence.

“If we come up with a suspect . . .,” he said, “we’d be able to identify him from them.”

County supervisors Tuesday added $5,000 to the $20,000 reward offered by PG&E; for information leading to the convictions of those responsible for the damage.

The power outages were particularly frustrating to businesses in Watsonville.

“There are restaurants that are just getting back together (after the October earthquake),” Medina said. “And to lose one day of business, that’s a lot. . . .”

“People here felt that PG&E; during the quakes was the premiere agency in their response,” the chief added. “They had 300 to 400 people here shutting off gas. . . . All that and some yo-yo goes out and cuts a power pole down.”

In the main plaza of downtown Santa Cruz on Tuesday, there were some spirited discussions regarding the power outages.

“Shutting down the power for a couple of hours a day is a good thing,” said a man who identified himself only as Jed and claimed to support so-called “eco-sabotage.”

“We should do it every day.”

“But the way they’re going about this is all wrong,” countered bus driver Jim Strickland, 43. “This doesn’t hurt PG&E.; It just hurts a lot of people who are trying to get by.”

“It’s about time someone did this,” said Francisco, a friend of Jed’s who also would not give his full name. “The inconvenience to a couple of medical patients is worth it to save all the world’s plants and animals.”

But Rosina and Louis Mazzei did not consider the outages an “inconvenience.” For Rosina, 69, who cannot breathe without a respirator, it was a life-threatening situation. When the power went out early Monday morning, Louis Mazzei hooked his wife’s respirator up to a battery while he worked fruitlessly to get a portable generator started.

After the battery began running low, he called the Santa Cruz Fire Department. While firefighters worked on the generator, two registered nurses took turns manually operating a respirator.

“I don’t know how this hurt PG&E;, but this sure hurt my wife,” Mazzei said. “If she’d died, these people would have been guilty of murder.”

Alison Bowman, city editor of the UC Santa Cruz weekly student newspaper, feels caught in the middle of the controversy. Bowman, 22, wrote an article criticizing the “corporate hijacking” of Earth Day in last week’s edition. Along with her story, the paper reprinted an Earth First! poster urging people to “Go out and do something for the EARTH . . . at night.”

Bowman said she has been accused of endorsing the saboteurs. Although she readily admits to supporting civil disobedience for environmental issues, she did not endorse the power failure incidents.

“Some people think it’s wrong to write about this in a way that’s not critical,” said Bowman, a senior majoring in politics.

For Mexican immigrant Jesus Vazarte, 28, the outages may have been the last straw in a string of events that began when October’s big temblor forced him from his home in Watsonville. Vazarte, who was laid off from a temporary job because of Monday’s outage, has not been able to find steady work in the past six months.

“Nothing has gone right for me in America,” Vazarte said in Spanish. “Life is very hard for me here.”

Medina estimates that some 19,000 undocumented workers live in the Watsonville area.

“And ecoterrorism?” asked the police chief. “Until yesterday, nobody here would have known what you’re talking about.”