David, Goliath and the Beach Cleaning Machine: How a Small California Town Fought an Oil Giant and Won (Capital Currents) [Hardcover]

Barbara Wolcott (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 193186831X | ISBN-13: 978-1931868310 | Publication Date: May 20, 2003 | Edition: 1

During an early morning run, Saro Rizzo, a young attorney from Avila Beach, California, stumbled yet again over picnic debris, and determined to get his little town a beach-cleaning machine. Ringed by mountains and nestled between Santa Barbara and Monterey, Avila Beach was an isolated little oil town of some four hundred aging hippies, scattered professionals, and active octogenarians. It was not a community of protestors. Rizzo innocently began his crusade by requesting a donation from the local oil giant Unocal. Through a series of events rich in deceit, controversy, and greed, a massive oil spill and an environmental disaster were exposed. Written by Pulitzer-prize-nominee Barbara Wolcott, "David, Goliath and the Beach-Cleaning Machine" is the hard-charging story of this heroic quest started by a son of immigrants, only two years out of law school, who rallies his town of fierce independents to take on a corporate giant -- and win big to the tune of $18 million in damages as well as an estimated $100-200 million for clean-up. Rizzo’s suit was the first of nearly sixty, including some filed by Ed Masry of Erin Brockovich fame. As a result of the massive clean-up, beautiful Avila Beach has been almost totally leveled and the townspeople are fighting to save those buildings that represent their history and sense of place. Now that the town is in the spotlight as a model of environmental rescue, the beach-cleaning machine has arrived!

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Nestled between the Sierra Madre Mountains and the Pacific Ocean, the self-described funky little community of Avila Beach had an ominous neighbor lurking over, and under, the town and its sand, soil, homes, and businesses. The Unocal Oil Company, long the town's major employer, had been steadily, and knowingly, polluting the seemingly pristine beach community for decades and would have continued were it not for a fateful morning jog in which longtime resident and new attorney, Saro Rizzo, literally stumbled on evidence of Unocal's dastardly despoiling of the environment. What begins as a simple case of trying to correct what appears to be a small problem quickly snowballs into the discovery of an environmental nightmare to rival the exxon Valdez. In a classic and, unfortunately by now, familiar tale of big-business greed versus small-town pride, Pulitzer Prize-nominee Wolcott presents a balanced expose of one company's arrogant response to an ecological and economic disaster and what one town and one man accomplished in the face of overwhelming odds. Carol Haggas
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

"...a well-research, richly detailed, edge-of-your-bedside page-turner with a weighty message." -- Susan Stewart, San Luis Obispo (CA) New Times, November 27, 2003

"...the book contains an interesting picture section to illustrate the area and the aftermath." -- Fred Klein, Santa Barbara News-Press

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Capital Books; 1 edition (May 20, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 193186831X
• ISBN-13: 978-1931868310
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #970,733 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars David, Goliath and the Beach Cleaning Machine, November 26, 2007

By 

Ronald C. Wootengreen (Las Vegas, NM) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: David, Goliath and the Beach Cleaning Machine: How a Small California Town Fought an Oil Giant and Won (Capital Currents) (Hardcover)

This is a compelling story and a page-turner of a book. My only problems with the book come down to two related issues and one editorial lapse.

After introducing the fact that Erin Brockovich and attorney Ed Masry ("fresh from their success in Hinckley, California, with a major Pacific Gas and Electric settlement") showed up in Avila Beach ("to add to the community's confusion")(p. 81). The author only five pages later begins a paragraph with the statement, "The Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) settlement was very important to Avila Beach..." At first one must assume that the settlement mentioned at page 86 is the Hinckley settlement. One must read on for three more paragraphs before one gets the hint that maybe the settlement referred to is not Hinckley but Diablo Canyon. Actually, this reader had to read pages 81-92 three times before he was able to make the connection.

Secondly, the author continually castigates the Brockovich/Masry role in Avila Beach. This reader is not disputing Barbara Wolcott's assertions, but he is wondering why, after all the exhausting research and extensive interviews copiously rendered in the Bibliography, she did not obtain Brockovich and Masry's point of view? If they refused to be interviewed, then say so.

Finally, at page 193 a poem by Stephen Vincent Benet appears with no attribution as to its publication source.

Despite the above critical remarks, this is a must read, especailly for those who doubt that Corporate America can do anything but good.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Slip-sliding away, July 7, 2007

By 

Calochortus "aroid" (San Luis Obispo, CA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: David, Goliath and the Beach Cleaning Machine: How a Small California Town Fought an Oil Giant and Won (Capital Currents) (Hardcover)

A thought-provoking book that's an easy read. I grew up near Avila Beach and we all just accepted oily feet and hands as part of the beach experience. This is a wonderful book that shows the powers of big corporations to delay, obfuscate and derail justice, using high-powered lawyers, and the legal system against the people. It makes you proud that the system worked. And it makes you wonder what the big oil companies are up to now, or the mining companies, or other big businesses.

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Terrific Read, June 3, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: David, Goliath and the Beach Cleaning Machine: How a Small California Town Fought an Oil Giant and Won (Capital Currents) (Hardcover)

I read this book in its entirety the day I received it in the mail. It is an incredible story, one that is told in a riveting narrative. I absolutely could not believe the lengths to which this oil company went to deny, delay, and stonewall the efforts of so many different people and organizations to hold them responsible for an underground oil spill they had undeniably caused. This book was an eye-opener. If you care about the environment, about energy, or about the law, read this book. I hope someone makes a movie out of this thing; it is such a great story.