LAGUNA BEACH : Police Arrest 3 More Tollway Demonstrators

Toll road protesters appeared in Laguna Canyon for the third straight day, but again failed to stop heavy equipment from grading Thursday.

Police arrested three people, including an environmental leader who locked himself beneath a huge bulldozer.

Authorities said about two dozen demonstrators carried signs against the 17-mile San Joaquin Hills tollway project and were peaceful, except for a few vocal confrontations with police, construction workers and passing motorists.

Three people who ignored warnings to leave were arrested, bringing the total number of arrests to 16 over the three days.

Protests began at the Laguna Canyon Road grading site north of El Toro Road on Tuesday, after a federal appeals panel dissolved an injunction that had halted construction of the tollway’s final 4 1/2 miles for the past 15 months, except for a single day’s work in June when the ban was briefly lifted.

Michael Phillips, 39, executive director of the Laguna Canyon Conservancy, was among those arrested on Thursday. He was arrested after he crawled beneath a bulldozer, put a bicycle lock around his neck and secured it to the bulldozer.

“I just wanted to be able to look people in the eye and say I did everything I could to save the canyon,” Phillips said.

Phillips, Kelly Ripley, 28, and John Pfeffer, 33, all of Laguna Beach, were arrested on suspicion of trespassing and taken to Laguna Beach jail where they were booked, cited and released on their own recognizance, police said.

Ripley and Pfeffer were taken into custody after the pair forced their hands and arms into a narrow pipe they wedged between the metal track of a bulldozer, forcing firefighters to pull them out.

At dawn, protesters blocked a pathway with garbage cans and sandbags. But construction workers simply walked through another dirt path leading into the hills and to their equipment.

A candlelight vigil by environmentalists near the construction site is scheduled to take place from 4 to 6 p.m. today.