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Phil Ashley would like to characterize himself as David fighting Goliath. Such is the nature of his struggle, he says, with the state Department of Water Resources over the environmental side effects of the State Water pipeline.
But he runs into a problem with that metaphor. The biblical David won his battle against the giant. Ashley is on the verge of an almost unqualified loss.
Sure, he's generated his fair share of publicity, and he's the only person who's managed to drag the DWR into a courtroom over the Coastal Branch Project. "We've only had one Phil Ashley, " project manager Don Kurosaka remarked dryly.
But with his lawsuit quickly dismissed last fall and a legal bill hovering over him, Ashley says he's learning the lesson learned by many Lone Ranger environmentalists who tried to oppose the system: They simply aren't big enough to do it. "It was kind of like...losing at every turn on this thing, " he said.
Ashley first filed suit against the agency a year ago when it filed a revised environmental impact report for the project. He created the Canyon and Streams Alliance so that he could put its name instead of his own on court documents.
The suit accused the DWR of needlessly plundering some of the most pristine rural land in San Luis Obispo County and violating the Califomia Environmental Quality Act. Ashley once did a senior project on the toxic effects of chlorine on fish. He was particularly concerned about the DWR pumping pre-treated drinking water through the pipe. He feared the pipeline, which crosses more than a hundred creeks in its passage a cross the county, would eventually leak into waterways and kill native fish.
But when the case got to court, the judge quickly ruled in favor of the DWR, which had a lawyer from the state Attorney General's Office involved on its behalf.
Ashley still isn't convinced justice was served, but Kurosaka says the ruling is proof the agency has upheld environmental standards.
"We were challenged in court, the court found in the Department's favor, and that would indicate that all the environmental mitigation is in order," he said.
Having lost that round, Ashley has focused his final efforts on the Cal Poly campus, where administrators still have not signed a final right-of-way over to the DWR.
"It's kind of sad that it's only come down to a couple of miles on a 100-mile pipeline that we're fighting for, but we've essentially lost everything else, " he said. "These creeks and woodlands are very sensitive on campus. If we lost on everything els e and at least got this, it would be something."
In the end, however, Ashley is unlikely to get even the concessions he wants. The university is still withholding an official signature on the pipe's passage. But Cal Poly Vice President for Administration and Finance Frank Lebens says his back is essen tially against a wall because the DWR can simply condemn the property it needs if the dispute gets nasty.
Although Lebens says he's still pushing to save a grove of ancient oaks, DWR spokesman Jeff Cohen says the decision to uproot them has already been made. Actual construction on campus property should start within a month, he said.
Even that is not the end of Ashley's troubles. After the lawsuit was over, he got a bill in the mail for $4,400. A provision in the California Environmental Quality Act allows agencies that are unsuccessfully sued under it to charge their opponent for the cost of compiling records to defend themselves.
Knowing this, Ashley says he asked DWR staffcounsel Dave Sandino how much those charges would amount to before he filed suit. Sandino, he maintains, assured him that it would only add up to "several hundred dollars" and that the DWR did not intend to "ge t in the way of the legal process by charging high costs. "
Sandino says he doesn't recall whether he said anything like that to Ashley, but can't imagine he would have since the stack of records for this case was "enormous." "The cost is pretty reasonable considering what it took to prepare, " Sandino said. "The state spent, of public money, a considerable amount more than $4,000 to defend the lawsuit.
Ashley's attorney for the case was pro bono. Going into it, Ashley says he could personally afford no more than $1,000 to pursue the suit. Now, he says, he has no intention of paying the full amount demanded by the DWR.
"I sent them a check for $500, because that clearly is closer to (the earlier estimate)," he said. "It's not my intention to go to jail, but it's at the point where I would almost have to do it to make a statement."
That fatalistic attitude, more than anything else, reflects Ashley's frustration after challenging his Goliath.
And although Sandino said he doesn't know if the DWR will even try to collect any more money, the construction marches on. The pipe will carry chlorinated water, and it will probably go right through the middle of the oak grove.
The battle of the State Water pipeline, for Ashley, is just about lost.
Silas Lyons is a freelance writer and Cal Poly student.
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