Ann and Jake Hougham--Arroyo Seco River Alliance

In a year that has been marked by numerous, high-profile skirmishes over land use in Monterey County--from September Ranch in Carmel Valley to the Mountain Valley project in Salinas--no group of individuals embodied the true spirit of grassroots environmental activism better than the Arroyo Seco River Alliance.

As the founders of the Alliance, it was Carmel residents and Arroyo Seco homeowners Ann and Jake Hougham, along with the Arroyo Seco Citizens Committee, who spearheaded the fight to save the lower Arroyo Seco River from what the Houghams say is irreparable environmental damage being caused by the Will Clark/Granite Construction mining operation located in the river bottom.

As one of the state''s last free-flowing rivers, the Houghams argue that the county abdicated its responsibility to monitor Clark''s operation and protect one of the county''s most precious natural resources.

"I felt the mining operation threatened the steelhead run on this river, and that is something worth saving," says Jake, an avid outdoorsman who believes that our legacy of wildlife can continue to thrive if all residents commit themselves to wise land-use practices.

"The steelhead are our ''canary-in-a-cage,''" adds Jake. "When the fish go, all of the habitat suffers and then we''re the next to go. As long as the runs are healthy, our ecosystem is healthy, and I would like people to see the correlation that if this can happen in Arroyo Seco, it can happen anywhere in the county."

"The Arroyo Seco River is a hidden gem in Monterey County and it''s been virtually untouched in the last 40 years," adds Ann. "It is still a gem worth preserving."

While environmental challenges to development aren''t exactly news in Monterey County, what is news is the way Ann and Jake''s creative, grassroots efforts pressured the county, after years of neglect, to better enforce the conditions placed on Clark''s mining operation.

Ann admits the decision to fight was daunting at first, especially since they had only recently purchased a home in Arroyo Seco and were reluctant to overstep their bounds as new neighbors.

"The Arroyo Seco Citizens Committee had worked on the issue, but we weren''t part of the group," explains Ann. "We needed to get residents together to find out how people felt down here. Everybody felt Clark needed to be stopped. We wanted to be the catalyst, so everyone asked us to take the lead."

Soliciting advice from LandWatch Monterey County and the Sierra Club, the Houghams put together a fast and effective campaign. With just a couple of flyers and through word of mouth, the Houghams gathered 90 residents for their first community meeting.

Subsequent meetings were attended by numerous county officials as the Houghams'' persistent pursuit of press coverage on the issue focused public scrutiny on the county''s complicity in the damage to the river.

Among the creative ways the Houghams mounted the campaign was to bring their own copier to county offices to save on the cost of copying the voluminous records on Clark''s operation. What all those documents revealed, say the Houghams, was a complete breakdown in the county''s oversight responsibilities.

"We couldn''t believe what we saw when we started poring over the files, all the discrepancies and number of times Clark was in violation," recalls Jake. "Clark wasn''t following up with restoration work and the county wasn''t watching, and when it all came to the surface, every department was pointing fingers at another department."

With the fate of Clark''s mining operation now waiting for a decision in Monterey County Superior Court, the Houghams are also waiting to decide what their next step will be.

Regardless of the outcome, the Houghams believe the lesson they learned from their first foray in activist politics is the need for all residents to become more directly involved in government.

"My father told me when I was young that if you don''t vote you can''t complain, so I vote," says Jake. "What he didn''t tell me is after you vote, if you aren''t holding the hands of officials, the vested interests will be there holding their hands instead and getting what they want out of government.

"People need to be more attentive to legislators and development," adds Jake. "We need to fix what we screwed up over the last hundred years; develop good infrastructure, traffic and water, and then look around to see what we can develop properly and not create a similar situation."

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