The agreement stipulates that l3 of 19 trees on Cal Poly property that were previously marked for removal will be spared.

Additionally, eight oaks out of a stand of 16 trees tagged for destruction on an adjoining parcel owned by Southern Pacific Railroad will also be saved, bringing the total number of oaks protected to 21.

The new pact, however, does not require the state Department of Water Resources to move the water pipeline-a critical element sought by many of those who have led the charge to protect the area's pristine habitat and its old oaks, some of which are belie ved to be between 200 and 300 years old.

"I think we did the best we could given the circumstances," said Cal Poly President Warren Baker. "I wish we could have got more but the timing hurt us. In general though, I think we're a lot better off than we were a few weeks ago."

Highlights of the agreement call for:

*The use of less invasive construction techniques to minimize environmental damage.
*State water officials to proi vide financial incentives to the project contractor to avoid removing oaks when possible. Incentives range from $2,500 for trees 12 or more inches in diameter to $750 for trees between 3 and 6 inches in diameter.
*State water officials to pay Cal Poly $10,000 for any tree that is torn out during construction that has not already been surveyed and approved for removal. The same penalty will be paid for any oaks that die within five years of the close of construction when it can be proved that the tree's demise was linked to a will ful act or negligent construction.
*The presence of a university-paid environmental monitor during all construction. The monitor has authority to halt work should any trees not slated for removal be threatened by construction.

The new agreement will allow state water officials to begin construction in the canyon as early as today in areas away from the oak groves or creek crossings.

The university and state water officials must still formulate an agreement that spells out how the contractor will approach the delicate work in and around the oak groves. That agreement is to be signed in a couple of weeks, according to Frank Lebens, vic e president for administration and finance.

Lebens, who served as the university's chief negotiator in the dispute, said that state water officials refused to entertain the idea of moving the pipeline route. He said they cited the added expense and the fact that much of the concrete pipeline has already been manufactured.

"They told us that they would not consider moving the alignment. Period." Lebens said. "It was a cost driven position from their perspective."

Still, Lebens said, state water officials agreed to make nearly $350,000 in new changes designed to reduce the project's impact on the canyon.

Robert Potter, deputy director of the state Department of Water Resources, said the department was glad to have reached an agreement with Cal Poly.

"We are pleased that the two sides have been able to come to mutually acceptable terms," Potter said during a short interview from his Sacramento office. "We're obviously very eager to get this project back on track."

While many familiar with the conflict praised the agreement, Phil Ashley, a technician in Cal Poly's Department of Biological Sciences, said Wednesday that he believed the university's agreement signaled that it was giving up any hope to protect the cany on's wildlands-specifically its extensive system of creeks and tributaries.

"I believe that Cal Poly caved in on this one," Ashley said. "I'm very disapointed. The DWR has apparently rejected even minor route changes that could have helped in a big way and the university has just gone along with it."

0thers, however, felt the agreement was basically acceptable given the university's late start in opposing the project.

"The agreement looks like it will save more trees than we thought but less than we might have hoped," said Geof Land, executive director of the Environmental Center of San Luis Obispo. "It could, however, establish an important precedent for other state water projects, especially in terms of setting up monitoring programs and establishing a system of contractor incentives and penalties."

Neil Havlik, president of the California Oaks Foundation, a statewide environmental organization, agreed. "I think this agreement is probably as good as Cal Poly could have hoped for, given the advance state of the pipeline project"said Havlik, who is the city of San Luis Obispo's environmental resources manager.

The agreement comes about a week after the director of the California Resources Agency issued a formal apology to Cal Poly officials after a state paid contractor prematurely began bulldozing Land in the canyon last week.

The apology from Douglas P. Wheeler to Baker came just two hours before university officials planned to seek a court order temporarily restraining the Department of Water Resources from continuing any further construction on its proposed water pipeline.< P> The false start resulted in construction crews bulldozing a long, 120 foot-wide swath of rangeland, ripping an ugly brown gash into a hillside and halting just a few hundred yards short of a stand of oak trees and a creek tributary.

Last week's mistaken start of construction angered Cal Poly officials who said they were depending on state water officials to honor a pledge to do no further work on the pipeline project in the canyon until a settlement in the dispute was reached.

That broken promise helped university officials secure the provision to add the on-site environmental monitor to the agreement.

"That event, I believe, ended up helping us a great deal," Baker said. "They (state water officials) did not want the monitor. The fact that we got it in the end is I believe unprecedented."

Throughout the conflict Cal Poly officials have argued that the pipeline should be re-routed because Stenner Creek Canyon serves as a natural laboratory for the biological sciences and natural resources management departments.

The section of the pipeline proposed to run through the canyon is part of a 100 mile-long offshoot of the California Aqueduct running from Kettleman City in Kings County to Vandenberg Air Force Base in Santa Barbara County.

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