Howard and Zaza Skidmore''s 1950''s-era ranch home is located just outside of Carmel''s city limits, between Carmel Point and Mission Fields, around the corner from the Carmel River School. The homes in this multi-million dollar neighborhood, first developed in the 1930s, are blessed with flat lots, the sound of the surf, and spectacular surroundings.

To the southwest of the homes, the Carmel River flows through a reedy beachside marsh, habitat to geese, foxes and egrets. In the brackish water, rare baby steelhead trout mature before they are ready to continue their life-cycle in the sea.

In the summer, the river dries to a trickle and stops at the lagoon. But during many winters, when the flow becomes strong enough, the river bursts through the sand berm and flows into the sea.

Sometimes, during winter storms, powerful ocean waves form a large sandbar, preventing the river''s escape. If the storms are big enough, giant swells may come over the top of the sandbar and into the lagoon. When this combines with heavy river flow, the lagoon spills over its banks and spreads into the low-lying neighborhoods.

For the past 30 years, the Monterey County Department of Public Works has monitored conditions, and when flooding appears imminent, has used bulldozers and shovels to mechanically breach the lagoon.

When this happens, the immature steelhead are washed into the sea, where they perish. Because of that, since 1999, when steelhead were placed on the federally-protected endangered species list, the County''s habitual breaching of the lagoon has come under fire.

To Kevan Urquhart, senior biologist at the California Department of Fish and Game, the breaching of the berm constitutes the "taking" of the steelhead-a violation of the Endangered Species Act.

Urquhart also criticizes the county for a lack of proper environmental permitting.

"It''s black-and-white," he says. "They are breaking the law.

"The county''s first argument is, ''Hey, it''s an emergency, we are exempt from the code when we are protecting life, limb, or property. But while it certainly feels like an emergency to the homeowner, it''s not unpredictable. This is no different than if you built your house on the beach then wondered why the waves came.

"I''ve got lots of grandmotherly types shaking their finger at me, like, ''You caused this problem,''" he says. "I''m saying: ''No, we didn''t, Mother Nature did.''"

On a sunny January afternoon, Howard Skidmore slides open his glass patio doors and stands on the gravel looking out at his landscape. Reddish-yellow reeds rustle in a slight breeze in the foreground of a vista that looks eastward to the green hills of the Fish Ranch and southwest to the Carmel River lagoon and the ocean.

Sticking out of the reeds, about 100 feet behind Skidmore''s patio, are white stakes, reflecting a potential flood wall designed by the Carmel Development Company, a group whose primary client is Clint Eastwood.

The proposed 2,400-foot-long wall, built 14.5 feet above sea level, would wrap around the northwestern perimeter of the lagoon, protecting the homes from flooding and the inhabitants of the lagoon from being drained out to sea.

Skidmore, who says he''s never been flooded, holds a few pages of photographs taken in various directions from the back side of his house. In the pictures, he has scribbled in a wall between the stakes. It''s a wall that stretches across his idyllic vista.

"When Clint''s architect, Alan Williams, brought up the idea of the wall, people said, ''Why are you proposing something that doesn''t affect the Mission Ranch?" he says. "He said it was a matter of public service-but who believes that? Some people were quite mean at the meetings."

Skidmore''s just formed a group called HOTLA: Homeowners On The Lagoon Association-a group that says it''s ready to "vigorously and legally defend homeowner peace of mind and rights."

Skidmore says that the frequent breaching must continue to protect the aesthetic beauty of the landscape, property values, and the wildlife, which he claims would be negatively impacted by a floodwall.

"If the wall were to become a serious proposition it is so deleterious to our interests that we would fight-first politically, then legally, if necessary," Skidmore says. "What do our houses have other than the view? It''s a million-dollar view. That''s what makes them so special."

It appears unlikely that the county will be allowed to continue to open the river''s path to the sea. In addition to permits from the Department of Fish and Game, the County must obtain permits from the Army Corps of Engineers and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS).

Joyce Ambrosius of NMFS says the County has finally started the federal process towards requesting a permit, but even if they obtain a permit, breaching techniques will have to be dramatically modified from the current straight-across cut that evacuates the lagoon in a matter of hours.

"The county''s been breaching since 1973, and they''ve never had a permit," she says. "For the last five years, we''ve been madly trying to get them to apply."

Skidmore''s insistence on business as usual is shared by some of his neighbors -HOTLA claims a handful of members. "The truth is we don''t have an awful lot of members," Skidmore says. "There are only 14 houses directly on the lagoon and a lot of them are absentee owners." Still, Skidmore believes that the threat of a dramatic reduction in property values would be enough to spur on a serious fight.

Jack Reynolds, who lives a few blocks away, heads up a competing neighborhood group, Homeowners for Effective Lagoon Management (HELM). Reynolds group has been around a little longer-it came together in December, and recently signed on as a "stakeholder" in the Carmel River Watershed Council.

Diana Reynolds, Jack''s wife, says HELM''s objective is to end the impasse and consider all options, including the floodwall.

"Our attitude is absolutely not," Skidmore says. "We should absolutely keep breaching the way we do now. We are 100-percent against a wall: it would destroy our view and the economic value of our house."

Reynolds concedes that the fact that the wall was designed by Eastwood''s architect and does not block the Mission Ranch resort''s view, poses a bit of a public-perception problem.

"People are very suspicious of Clint and want to know what''s in it for him," she says. "In this case there is something, but it''s not necessary evil."

Michael Waxer, vice president of the Carmel Development Company, counters that Eastwood''s intentions are environmentally sound, and have the neighborhood interests in mind.

"Obviously we have an interest, but we are above the flood plain," he says. "We''ve dealt with a number of suspicious people over the years, and it''s true the lower portion of our property is in the flood plain, but our buildings are not at risk. You could make an argument to extend the wall in front of the Mission Ranch so that nothing floods, but it would add cost and wouldn''t really provide a benefit except to the lower parking lot and tennis courts."

Waxer says that the thin wall, composed of steel and a plastic-like material, would be quickly covered in vegetation, and while it would definitely cause visual changes, would protect homes while respecting the environment.

"Honestly, we believe this has legs," he says. "We know it can be constructed and we know it''s not prohibitively expensive. It''s a fairly economic way to obtain this objective, and it can be installed in an environmentally benign way."

Urquhart, who has been described as "impolitic" by some of the homeowners, says that the county has been stymieing the state process by refusing to allocate money for the permitting process.

"We''re stuck here sitting on the sidelines while they fail to have their permits and continue to break the law."

But Lew Bauman, director of Monterey County Department of Public Works, says the county is acting in good faith, and is already paying for a biological consultant to do water sampling, but does not have money allocated for the rest of the process.

"It''s an interesting question, on whose going to pay for the permitting process, and the potential construction of a wall, environmental mitigation, and a stormwater pumping facility," he says. "A very rough guess of the cost for the process and construction is between $1.9-$4.3 million."

But according to Urquhart, and Jonathan Berkey, executive director of the Watershed Council, the range of alternatives to an expensive floodwall are few.

"Only something like the floodwall will provide 100 percent protection for both the homeowners and the environment," Urquhart says. "Most people don''t realize that the current system of breaching only provides intermittent protection from flooding."

Berkey explains that dredging the lagoon, which some homeowners advocate, is unlikely to resolve the flooding.

"It only creates a bigger bathtub," he says. Besides the floodwall, which Berkey says is a viable option, the only two remaining options are to purchase and ultimately remove all the homes in the floodplain, or to raise their foundations or place the homes on stilts.

"It would be prohibitively expensive to buy the homes, because of the neighborhood," Berkey says. "But in other areas, homes are lifted all the time."

County Supervisor Dave Potter, who has been hosting community roundtables, says that despite all the finger-pointing, its time to "end the endless debate."

"We are in the mode that there has to be something done to resolve this-we are not going to break federal laws and put our employees at risk of arrest," Potter says. "I don''t really want to get into a debate about who''s more important, fish or man."