This article is abridged from the Winter 2005-2006 issue of Coast & Ocean. For a copy of the print edition or to subscribe to Coast & Ocean, click here.

With this issue, this magazine begins its twentieth year of publication. It was launched in winter 1985 as California WaterfrontAge. As that name suggests, the original intent was primarily to report on the revitalization of urban waterfronts and stimulate ideas on the subject. Don Neuwirth was the founding editor.

Soon, however, the magazine outgrew the name as its coverage expanded, along with its readership. So in 1990, we became California Coast & Ocean, to match what we have been trying to do since I became editor in 1986: to bring Californians the information they need to know their coast, enjoy it more, and protect it for future generations of humans and other creatures. We are grateful to the Coastal Conservancy for the opportunity to practice fair and careful journalism as we try to provide in-depth coverage of major conservation issues along the California shoreline, on San Francisco Bay, in coastal watersheds, and offshore.

In this issue and throughout the coming year, we will bring you two special features: In each of our four issues we will look at an urban waterfront, beginning with Oakland, and also briefly revisit some stories we covered during the past two decades. A backward glance reveals that there is much good news to report. The California Coastal Act of 1972, a voter initiative, has proved itself a powerful tool for serving the citizens’ will and desire to protect our coast from inappropriate development and other destruction, and to secure public access. Other tools have been created since it was passed and as we learned more about what conservation requires.

In looking back, we can see how modest local initiatives have grown into more encompassing efforts. Two examples are in this issue: Arcata Marsh and the Monterey Bay Aquarium. We also see a shift in baseline assumptions. In 1985, it appeared that offshore oil development was imminent and inevitable. But Californians fought against it and won. Now there is discussion about what to do with offshore oil platforms that have outlived their uses. At the same time, the prospect of offshore oil development has arisen again.

As everyone who has fought for the coast, as a citizen or a public official, recognizes: to protect what we cherish, we the citizens have to stay alert and engaged.

—Rasa Gustaitis

UPDATES
TWENTY YEARS AGO

Offshore Oil: Battles Won and Upcoming

“Oil production from discoveries offshore Santa Barbara County is expected to increase from the present 80,000 barrels per day to 500,000 barrels per day by the early 1990s… unless great care is taken, there is reason to fear that the Santa Barbara County coastline’s magnificent beauty may be transformed into a sprawling industrial complex over the next several years.”

“Must Oil Development Be Ugly?”
Vol. 1, No. 1—Winter 1985

At a time when Santa Barbara County seemed about to experience a huge boom in offshore drilling, William Travis, then deputy director of the California Coastal Commission, suggested that the beauty of the coastline be preserved by making the “inevitable” platforms and onshore processing facilities as aesthetically acceptable and publicly accessible as possible. “A recent Field poll found that the majority of Californians now oppose offshore drilling,” Travis wrote. “In dealing with the planning and regulation of energy activities along the California coast, I have found that this opposition is based largely on the widely held perception that offshore platforms are just plain ugly.”

Therefore, Travis suggested, the oil industry could “temper the public’s negative reaction toward industrial projects in general and oil platforms in particular” by designing facilities that “in addition to being extraordinarily attractive” are also “accessible for tours to offer the public an opportunity to learn how the facility works and why it is necessary.”

These suggestions remain largely untested, however, because the expected drilling boom did not materialize. While oil production off Santa Barbara’s coast has continued, the peak, reached in 1995, was just 188,000 barrels a day. The coastline remains beautiful, not because an aesthetically enlightened industrial architect created beautiful refineries, but because offshore oil drilling has been so unpopular in California that a bipartisan consensus has continued to restrict it.

It was the sight of oil-soaked dying birds and marine mammals, rather than design considerations, that moved people in the aftermath of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. President George H. W. Bush ordered a ten-year moratorium on oil leasing on much of the outer continental shelf (federally controlled beyond state limits), to begin in 1990. Congress has since upheld that moratorium and, in 1998, President Clinton extended it until 2012.

There is, however, a movement afoot to loosen the ban on new leasing. A group of three Senators (Pete Dominici of New Mexico, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee) has sent a letter to Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton asking her to allow new studies of potential drilling sites on the outer continental shelf. Energy bills in the last two years (neither of which passed the Senate) also included a plan to inventory reserves in areas currently covered by the moratorium. Congresswoman Lois Capps and Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, all of California, have been leading opposition to the proposal.

While new oil leases continue to be prohibited, the 36 previously permitted but undeveloped leases off California’s coast have become the focus of an intense legal struggle. In 1999, when the lease holders sought an extension to keep them current without drilling, the Coastal Commission, Governor Davis, and several environmental organizations— with the Environmental Defense Center, a Santa Barbara–based public interest law firm, taking a lead role—filed a lawsuit against the Department of the Interior and six oil companies. The suit contended that the State had the right to review the lease extensions for conformity with California’s coastal management program. The U.S. District Court in Oakland found for the State, the Bush administration appealed, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the District Court decision. In March 2003, the Department of the Interior announced that it will not appeal that decision.

The George W. Bush administration, which bought out offshore leases in Florida, declined to do so at the same time in California. Buyout discussions did begin later, but the federal government and the oil companies are far apart on the price. Linda Krop, chief counsel for the Environmental Defense Center, said “the oil companies are asking for a lot,” even though the value of the leases is uncertain. If the Coastal Commission were to determine that oil exploitation under the leases would be inconsistent with coastal protection, the leases would definitely be devalued. But the Coastal Commission can’t make that determination until the federal Minerals Management Service (MMS), which oversees oil leases in federal waters, finishes its environmental assessment of the lease extensions. Alison Dettmer, manager of the Coastal Commission’s energy and ocean resource development unit, said that the MMS is expected to submit its consistency determination and environmental analysis to the Commission April 6, and that the Commission will consider it in June. The MMS’s analysis is considering not only the environmental impacts of extending the current leases but also the impacts that future exploration and development might have if the extensions were accepted.

Meanwhile, some existing offshore oil platforms have outlived their usefulness. Platform Grace, off the Ventura County coast, is being considered for two possible new uses, both controversial. Crystal Energy, a Texas company, proposes to convert this platform into a liquified natural gas terminal (see Coast & Ocean, Autumn 2004), while Hubbs–SeaWorld Research Institute wants to use it for a fish farm.

The question William Travis posed in the first issue of California WaterfrontAge 20 years ago, “Must Oil Development Be Ugly?” is still out there for debate. Travis, now executive director of the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, has continued to seek aesthetic improvements and public access to shoreline industrial facilities, with scant success. The most notable achievement, he said, was Chevron’s decision to paint its oil tanks in Richmond adobe, which makes them look less “alien” to the landscape than they did when painted green, blue, or gray.