Water Fight in Newport Imitates Art

In “A Civil Action,” John Travolta plays a lawyer obsessed with pursuing two companies accused of polluting a town’s water supply linked to leukemia deaths. Everyone told him he couldn’t take on the corporate giants.

Bob Caustin can relate, even if he is better looking than Travolta.

Caustin is a Newport Beach real estate broker and blond curly-haired hunk who hated biology in school and knew nothing about water quality. His idea of the environmental movement was to body surf and race sailboats.

Until one day in 1995, that is, when he got mad at the Irvine Ranch Water District and his life went off in another direction.

First he got mad. Then he got even.

The district wanted a permit to pump millions of gallons of treated sewage into Upper Newport Bay. Convinced the effluent would wreak havoc on the environmentally sensitive bay, Caustin decided to look into fighting the district. Wisely, he looked around for fellow soldiers.

He found none.

So, he formed his own army and took on a fool’s errand: challenging a wealthy water district with its phalanx of water experts and lawyers.

Caustin countered with a nonprofit group called Defend the Bay. Telling supporters the group would need top-notch scientists and seasoned lawyers, he tapped residents, friends and foundations for money.

For Caustin, who turns 45 this Saturday, it became a mission.

He and his wife, a neurologist, spend so much time discussing the issue, he says, “our pillow talk is sewage and reclaimed water and water quality and guys who want to pollute. Sometimes, we have to declare sewage-free zones.”

The water district vociferously disputed that it was polluting, contending that its discharge program actually would improve the bay. Along the way, the district won four times in seeking permits from state and local water boards.

Then, Caustin’s group took the district to court. Last year, Superior Court Judge Robert Thomas gave Defend the Bay the victory it wanted.

He revoked the district’s permit to discharge the treated water into the bay, saying it hadn’t proved the project was environmentally sound.

For the real estate broker turned environmentalist, the decision was sweet vindication.

“I hate to think of myself as single-minded,” Caustin says, “but I am focused and myopic about this. I’m not going to say this [the discharge program] is going to cause leukemia, but it was a step in the same direction. They were absolutely, unjustifiably harming something of great value and justifying it with misinformation and poor science.”

My call to the water district went unreturned. Caustin assumes, with pride, that he’s at the top of their enemies list. He says someone in the water district’s camp told him he was known as “the second coming of the devil” around its offices.

“I told that person, ‘I’m hurt. I’m offended. When I set out to do good and someone calls me the second coming of the devil, I don’t want to come in second to anyone.’ ”

Since 1995, Caustin says his group has raised $400,000 to fight the water district. He claims a donor list of about 1,000 and says the organization’s budget for the current year has swelled to $250,000.

No doubt, the Irvine Ranch Water District wishes Caustin would sail away. In a way, he says as we talk in his office on Old Newport Boulevard, he does too. He jokes, for example, that he’s neglected his real estate business to the point that “it has not gotten its fair share of the boom market” in recent years.

I have a vision: Ordinary Guy Becomes Environmentalist and Thwarts Powerful Water District.

A screenplay perhaps.

Caustin’s looks have their advantages. He could play himself in the movie.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821, by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or by e-mail at dana.parsons@latimes.com