July 27, 2009

A Brief History of Ocean Protection

The Ocean Protection Coalition has its roots in the Ecology Movement of the late 1960's and early 70's.  Northern Californians had adamantly opposed PG&E's attempts to build nuclear power plants directly on earthquake faults at Bodega Head and Point Arena. The disasterous blowout of a Santa Barbara oil rig in 1969  hit home to West Coasters that big oil and wild Pacific waters don't mix. A few years later, the United States Navy announced plans to scuttle old nuclear submarines into the Noyo Canyon just off the Mendo-Humboldt Coast -- plans local outcry put a stop to.

And in the early 1970's, the "Mendocino Whale Wars" coincided with Greenpeace's efforts to peacefully stop the hunting of whales before they went extinct.  Like many others, the legendary sculptor Byrd Baker started doing something - he carved giant whales out of redwood logs, and advocated relentlessly for the whales and the ecology.   Mendocino locals and visitors were inspired to awareness and action, that helped the California Gray Whale and other marine mammals make a strong comeback.  Activists, artists and regular folks were successful in stopping the whaling, keeping these and other marine mammals still with us on the planet. Each spring and fall, the magnificent Greys can be seen just off this coast, on their epicly long seasonal migrations....

Meanwhile -- In 1977, the Minerals Mangement Service announced "Lease Sale 53" - to give long-term leases to big oil operations that wanted to install more giant oil platforms off Santa Barbara, and new ones off Northern California.  Only the north was spared, by fledgling and growing anti-oil sentiment. The sparks of the no ocean-drilling movement had been kindled.

Ten years later in the 1980's, the M.M.S. announced "Lease Sale 91" -- plans to give away Northern California waters, its wildlife, and its fishing and tourist industries to toxic drilling for natural gas and oil, in one of the world's most pristine and productive aquatic upwellings. But the studies, the suits, and the shiney black shoes were back in town, and they wanted the oil. Who cared about the locals, the fishermen, marine food chains, earthquake faults - or the whales?

The people of California answered. At the famous "Fort Bragg Oil Hearings" of 1988, more than 3000 people, toddlers to 90-year-olds, from every walk of life, unanimously and poetically told our government that the whales, the fish, birds, water, and our children's future were not for lease or sale. The hearings lasted for three days. One person after another got up and told big oil to "go home."  A moratorium on oil drilling was declared that lasted for almost twenty years.

Then in 1989, the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill in Alaska, showed beyond any shadow of a doubt that one careless oil industry mistake can ruin a coastline, its wildlife and the lives of locals basically, forever.

At the year 2000, Bush-the-Second followed his Dad's slippery lead, and by  2006 - nearing the end of his eight-year term -- oily plans began seeping out again. The Bush administration began moves to lift the offshore oil moratoriums, and Congress consented. Around the same time, P.G.&E., Chevron, and others snapped up more than 200 square miles of ocean just off Mendocino and Humboldt Counties in a watery real estate rush, to pursue nebulous proposals of untested "wave energy" machines.  A shadowy federal agency called F.E.R.C. (Federal Energy Regulatory Commision), reportedly answering to Dick Cheney, suddenly appeared on the scene, and claimed jurisdiction over the outer waters for energy development. The same waters that had been of such keen interest to oil and gas developers in previous decades.... 

By the elections of 2008, the shouted slogans of "Drill, Baby, Drill" drowned out earlier whispers of new leases possibly being offered by a corrupt Minerals Management Service. The suits were back in black -- and rumours, suspicion -- long meetings with bad information -- ruled the day.

The OPC re-formed in 2007 in response to P.G.&E. and F.E.R.C.'s ambiguous plans for huge wave energy farms off the Mendocino Coast. In the brief two+ years since then, other threats to a healthy and sustaining ocean have become ever more apparent. The Navy announced plans to test weapons of war in the Pacific Northwest. Corporate foundations along with Fish and Game threaten to close off large areas of the coast to food harvesting. Other more global perils to the ocean loom on the horizon.

Old circles have completed, new ones begun. It remains to be seen what policies the new Obama administration will follow. The OPC will continue to follow and address these issues.

By D. Mackay