RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA : Earth First! Activist Protests Roadwork

An Earth First! activist remained atop a platform halfway up a 200-foot crane at the Foothill toll road construction site Thursday night, vowing to remain there for five days to protest the road project.

Sheriff’s deputies surrounded the spot Thursday morning and did not allow other activists near the work site high above O’Neill Regional Park. An officer said there were no immediate plans to attempt to bring down the man, identified as Craig Beneville.

Earth First! spokesman Patrick Mitchell said Beneville plans to remain on the platform for at least five days.

The action was the second time in a little more than a month that Earth First! activists disrupted operations at the construction site. On Sept. 27, they also disrupted work at the San Joaquin Hills tollway in Laguna Niguel by chaining themselves to bulldozers.

Lisa Telles, spokeswoman for the Transportation Corridor Agencies, the agency in charge of toll road construction in the county, said the only impact the activists had was to prevent workers from using the crane.

“But (they) have not stopped any of the operations there. The construction schedule has not been impacted,” she said.

In pre-dawn hours, members of the group, which is opposed to the construction of all tollways in the county, hoisted a 3-by-6-foot wooden platform to the halfway point of the 200-foot crane, attached it to the equipment and posted Beneville there.

Mitchell said the platform has been rigged in a such a way that if workers or authorities try to move the crane, Beneville would fall 100 feet to the ground.

“We have upped the ante,” Mitchell said, “but it is required.”