The Battle of Rustic Canyon

Pick one:

* It’s a carefully manicured hillside that will become a crown jewel of the Westside--one where thousands of native oaks and plants will connect a spectacular ocean overlook with a sycamore-shaded canyon stream.

* It’s a denuded hillside that has become a dangerous eyesore--one where heavy-handed bulldozing could lead to flooding of downstream roads and damage to million-dollar estates if El Nino strikes this winter.

Those seem to be the choices these days for Pacific Palisades residents who are watching Winston Salser carve his piece of paradise out of the edge of Rustic Canyon.

Salser is a UCLA biology professor and do-it-yourself environmentalist. He is 15 months into a project to turn a steep slope at the edge of Topanga State Park into a terraced showcase for about 50 species of grasses, shrubs and flowers native to Southern California.

Once the plantings take root, Salser, 58, intends to build a house at the top of the hill next to Casale Road for himself and his wife of 34 years, Susan.

The problem is that the unusual two-acre landscaping job has barely started. And a severe rainy season is said to be on its way.

That has prompted cries of alarm from downstream residents, local authorities and operators of a Boy Scout camp near Salser’s project.

They worry that winter rains will wash loose soil from the bulldozed hillside and that the rising canyon stream will undermine the slope.

If the slope fails, tons of sliding earth and rocks could dam the canyon. In a worst-case scenario, a blockage could suddenly give way, sending a wall of water sweeping down the canyon toward homes owned by such celebrities as Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“People downstream would be hit bad. It would take out Sunset Boulevard,” said Joe Sheppard, who runs the Boy Scouts’ Camp Josepho three miles upstream from Salser’s property. “People downstream won’t know what hit them if that hillside breaks loose.”

Los Angeles building officials are also nervous about the site. They have ordered Salser to quit bulldozing the hillside until new soil-stability tests are done.

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The state’s Department of Fish and Game asserts that dirt and debris from Salser’s earthmoving have already begun sliding into the creek. Officials say that agency is preparing to take Salser to court.

But Salser contends that his project is safe and legal.

“We have six permits on different aspects of this property,” he said. “Their catastrophic predictions are all lies.”

Workers hired by Salser have terraced the hillside with interlocking concrete-slab retaining walls. Lumber salvaged from three demolished Pacific Palisades houses is being attached to the ground with spikes to add more soil stability, he said.

A bulldozed access road that zigzags down the hillside will capture rain runoff and prevent it from cascading unchecked down the hill and eroding the earth, according to Salser.

The project has been a hands-on affair for the university professor, who often operates backhoes and other earthmovers himself.

“He’s like a little kid in a sandbox, that’s how I see him,” said Lisa Hill, the West Los Angeles deputy to City Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski. “He wholeheartedly believes he is really doing things that in the long run will help.”

Hill said Miscikowski is taking seriously the warning that downstream areas could be in danger.

“We’re all working toward having things stabilized before the rainy season starts. But because of the given history out there, I don’t know what to anticipate.”

Hill was talking about Salser’s ongoing feud with the Boy Scouts. Salser has quarreled with Scouts officials over their use of a fire road through his property since he purchased the site six years ago.

Salser has long been enamored of the Santa Monica Mountains. In the 1970s, he played a role in the acquisition of parkland in Temescal Canyon and the creation of Topanga State Park. A resident of Pacific Palisades since 1968, he often hiked in Rustic Canyon.

When the Casale Road hillside was put up for sale in 1991, Salser snapped it up for $1.2 million--spending money he had made a decade earlier when he helped form the pioneering genetic engineering firm Amgen.

One of his first moves after that was to challenge the legality of the Scouts’ use of the fire road. Scouts had used the meandering, one-lane road as the entryway to Camp Josepho since 1941.

The dispute became heated when Salser sued the Scouts and they countersued. Punches were allegedly thrown in a confrontation between Salser and a Scoutmaster in 1992. That year, Scouting officials tried to place Salser under a citizen’s arrest.

A settlement reached last December through arbitration allows the Scouts continued use and maintenance of the road. But Salser contends that the Scouts have failed since then to repair the road--and that they have blocked him from making emergency repairs. Scout officials say they are working on a plan to fix the road.

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A month ago, Salser tried to make a citizen’s arrest of Scout camp operator Sheppard after he removed sandbags that Salser had placed on the fire road to divert Topanga State Park storm runoff from his site.

Sheppard complained that the sandbags were blocking Scouts’ access to their camp. But Salser said he had the informal approval of park officials to place the sandbags because forecasters were predicting that Hurricane Nora might reach Los Angeles.

Los Angeles police called to the scene refused to arrest Sheppard after reviewing a copy of last year’s court agreement affirming the Scouts’ access to the fire road.

Dan Preece, district state parks superintendent for the Los Angeles area, said Salser was told he could place sandbags on state property only as a “short-term action during a storm episode,” not as a permanent fixture.

Preece said he is worried about erosion and flooding downstream from Salser’s property. “I’m pleased other agencies are involved,” he said.

Although Salser disputes that he has been ordered to halt work until new soil stability studies are turned over to the city, officials say they are prepared to go to court if necessary to get his attention.

“I have a copy of the order right in front of me,” said Mike Lee, investigations chief for the city’s Building and Safety Department. “We definitely don’t want to sit on this with the rains coming.”

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Jon Willcox, the state Department of Fish and Game warden for the Santa Monica Mountains, said El Nino could turn gentle Rustic Canyon Creek into a raging torrent “that could flush out the unstable hillside.”

And rainwater cascading down the face of Salser’s graded slope could end up causing erosion resembling “water going through flour,” Willcox warned.

That kind of talk is not reassuring to nearby residents.

“Nobody who calls himself an environmentalist is going to cut down 40% of a mountain like Winston has,” said Joanne Thompson, who has lived next to the canyon since 1959 with her husband, screenwriter Robert Thompson.

“How can one human being do this? How can God’s work be destroyed because of one man’s ego?” Thompson said. “I don’t see how people are going to avoid being flooded out.”

Neighbor John Beck, a professor of medicine at UCLA agreed: “If that hill goes out, people down below are going to be submerged in mud.”

Susan Salser said she understands the concern about her husband’s hillside work.

“It’s pretty scary having a projected nasty winter this early in the project,” she acknowledged. “It’s massively huge. It looks like a series of house pads. But it’s all going to be trees and grass and flowers.

“This is a long time to carry on a war with people. But I have a lot of respect for Winston’s vision.”