CALIFORNIA ALBUM : The Nuclear Protester Who Won’t Give Up : Many around San Luis Obispo have come to an uneasy peace with the Diablo Canyon Power Plant. But one woman, who was fired for refusing to take children to a marine lab there, continues her opposition.

It used to be a Central Coast symbol of evil, the site of weeks-long blockades and celebrity-studded demonstrations as protesters struck out against a perceived threat to the environment and human safety.

Today, Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant in Avila Beach is the site of far different demonstrations, ones sanctioned by the county superintendent of schools and aimed at teaching children about the ocean and the environment in a marine biology laboratory.

In little more than a decade, San Luis Obispo and the small, graceful cities on this crescent of coastline have come to an uneasy peace with the massive plant. For many former protesters here, P G & E--the plant’s owner--is still far from an atomic ally, but economic necessity and political burnout have thinned the ranks of the anti-nuclear faithful and muted their cries.

Leaving Kathy DiPeri pretty much alone.

DiPeri was arrested in 1981, along with singer Jackson Browne and hundreds of others protesting the nuclear power plant. She was arrested again in August, one of only 13 who landed in jail after a Hiroshima Day rally at Diablo Canyon.

She lost her job over her beliefs, for her refusal to take children from the county-run environmental camp where she worked to the marine biology lab at the nuclear power plant. No job, she says, should require a woman to betray her morals, her religion. A judge agreed in September; the county superintendent of schools appealed in November. DiPeri is still unemployed.

“A lot of people have lost faith in being activists,” said the soft-spoken 35-year-old. “I don’t like to lose faith.”

Artist Carol Loomis, another 1981 Diablo Canyon arrestee, said DiPeri is in “a really lonely place” these days. Loomis supports DiPeri’s stand, she says, but she just cannot bring herself to fight what she considers the good fight anymore.

“No one had spoken up (against Diablo Canyon) for a very long time,” Loomis said. “Kathy took this stand. I think it was phenomenal. . . . But I don’t do that anymore. I totally burned out on it.

*

Every year, thousands of fifth- and sixth-graders from school districts throughout San Luis Obispo County spend anywhere from one to five days at Rancho El Chorro. They learn about the Chumash Indians who once populated the rolling, oak-dotted hills that rise above San Luis Obispo Bay.

They hike the hillsides and chart the wildflowers, watch the bobcats and study the pond water, get a hands-on look at nature, what protects it, what destroys it.

“What we want the kids to be able to do is access (nature) and appreciate it, look at it and leave it,” said Linda Shephard, county superintendent of schools. “I think the way to do that is to get their hands on it.”

One gap in the program, Shephard said, was the discipline of sea life and marine biology. The camp where DiPeri worked as an environmental interpreter had a pond but “was at the mercy of the tides” when it came to studying tide pools, Shephard said. She approached P G & E to help out; trips to the nuclear power plant and its lab with tanks of sea stars and anemones became a part of the Rancho El Chorro program two years ago.

It wasn’t long before DiPeri began to protest. For starters, she did not believe that a trip to the local nuclear power plant was safe for her students. And she could not fathom P G & E as an environmental educator.

“The moral concern I have is I don’t want to participate in lying to kids and making them think a corporation that’s desecrating the environment is doing a good thing for the environment,” she said.

After going to her union for advice, DiPeri filed a letter of protest but continued to take her charges to Diablo Canyon. Several co-workers offered to take her place on the power plant excursions, she said, but her supervisors would not allow it. Finally, she refused to go at all and eventually was fired.

Although she sued to get her job back--and won--she has yet to return to work because her victory has been appealed. She has been unemployed for 1 1/2 years, a time she spent in part trying to run a small farm--without great success.

Shephard would not talk about the DiPeri case, but she defended the environmental education program and the schools’ relationship with P G & E. “We felt it was a good partnership and an integral part of the program,” Shephard said.

*

DiPeri has taken her case to school districts throughout the county. Although she has received some quiet support from parents and PTA presidents, her efforts have been to little avail. She blames politics--and economics.

Jill ZamEk, an active member of the anti-nuclear group Mothers for Peace, concurs. ZamEk has spent 18 months working against P G & E’s efforts to renew Diablo Canyon’s license; she, too, was arrested in 1981, and left the area for a year when the nuclear power plant began operating.

“In terms of fighting the school district, it’s important but uncomfortable,” ZamEk said. “I have a job with the school district. There’s only so much you can do without being fired.”

For those with less of a political bent, the decision becomes easier when P G & E’s community involvement is taken into consideration.

San Luis Obispo County is home to 230,000 people, 3% to 4% of whom work for the power company. P G & E is the biggest private employer in the county, the company says, and pays among the highest wages. It also is a major benefactor, giving money and in-kind assistance to the schools, the children’s museum and other institutions that are strapped in these recessionary times.

Dennis Hennessy, manager of P G & E’s Los Padres Division--which includes Diablo Canyon-- contends that the company does not do more community outreach here than other places it operates, and does not try to compensate for running a nuclear power plant.

He says it’s not necessary. The plant has operated safely since 1985, he says, and the community does not seem concerned. “This community over the last 10 years has had a tremendous influx from Southern California,” he said. “Culturally, the area has changed.”

Not totally. For her part, DiPeri sees her court battle as a victory and plans to press on in her fight against Diablo Canyon and the county schools.

“I want back pay, about $10,000,” she said. “I want my job back. And I want them to stop sending kids to the power plant.”