On the Road Again : Bulldozers Move Across Laguna Canyon as Tollway Foes Watch in Protest

Bulldozers resumed grading in Laguna Canyon on Tuesday after a federal appeals court denied a petition for a rehearing in the Laguna Greenbelt’s suit to halt the final phase of the 17-mile San Joaquin Hills tollway.

In response, up to 30 protesters, many of whom had taken civil disobedience training courses, went to the construction site. But they demonstrated peacefully while heavy equipment scraped the earth in the environmentally sensitive canyon. One person was arrested for trespassing.

Contractors were told to resume work by the Transportation Corridor Agencies after receiving word from the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco that the petition for a rehearing was denied and a previous injunction dissolved, said Lisa Telles, a corridor spokeswoman.

A last-ditch effort to stop the bulldozers came in the form of a request for a temporary restraining order filed in Santa Ana federal court later Tuesday. Greenbelt argued that the habitat of the California gnatcatcher, which is listed by the federal government as a federally threatened species, deserves to be protected by federal law.

“We’re doing everything we can to try and protect the area,” said an optimistic Joel R. Reynolds, senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council in Los Angeles and the attorney for Laguna Greenbelt Inc.

A decision on a temporary restraining order is pending.

Work on a 4 1/2-mile segment of the tollway had been blocked for 15 months by litigation challenging an environmental impact statement. With the court’s action, work resumed between El Toro Road and Newport Coast Drive.

“This is great news for commuters in South Orange County,” said William Woollett Jr., chief executive officer for the Orange County Transportation Corridor Agencies. “This process has gone on much too long. It is now time to finish the project.”

Meanwhile, about two dozen protesters visited Laguna Canyon Road carrying signs that read, “Developers Go Build in Hell!” The court’s action, they said, had caught them by surprise.

CrisScaglione, 39, of Dana Point said friends called her at 10 a.m. and notified her of the decision. Immediately, the psychotherapist, who had taken civil disobedience training, canceled her afternoon appointments and drove to the protest site.

She said she parked behind a hillside and walked by herself for several hundred feet over a rise only to be confronted by several bulldozers moving toward her.

“I stood in front of these men coming down with their bulldozers,” Scaglione said. “I didn’t think I could do it. But they drove around me . . . it didn’t help. If there had been about a hundred of us it would have helped.”

Project foes obtained a preliminary injunction in September, 1993, to stop the project’s construction. In June, a drama unfolded in the canyon north of El Toro Road when a judge ruled that grading could begin, prompting bulldozers and protesters to race to the site. One protester chained himself to a bulldozer and another was arrested.

The grading was halted the next day by a second court order. But on Dec. 2, the Court of Appeals gave the toll road the go-ahead.

Beth Leeds, one of the protest leaders, said if the temporary restraining order now is not granted, “demonstrators, if necessary, will go into the hills to protect those trees that are standing.”

On Tuesday, protesters cried foul when heavy-equipment operators bulldozed several larger trees, including an oak. They said many of the trees were supposed to be protected.

However, Gene Foster, Transportation Corridor Agencies corridor manager who was at the site, said the trees taken down were already selected for removal.

Foster characterized protesters as being “well-behaved.”

Today, he said workers will continue with clearing, grading and erosion control.