Readers React: Oil platforms inspire plenty of feelings — nostalgia isn’t one of them

To the editor: At first, I thought the Column One article by reporter Thomas Curwen was going to describe the long-overdue removal of the unsightly and outdated oil rigs that mar the Santa Barbara coastline.

But then the author waxed nostalgic about his industry-hosted visit to one of the oil platforms, with terms such as the “nearly iconic, inescapable status in the California landscape” of the platforms, and observations such as, “At twilight, the platforms brighten the horizon with their …mysterious, even pretty” lights.

I volunteered with a bird rescue organization after the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill. So yes, it’s understandable that the decommissioning of these archaic structures is being “celebrated by environmentalists, activists and residents of the Santa Barbara coast.” It should be celebrated by all of us.

Julia Borovay, Redondo Beach

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To the editor: As I sit writing, children march worldwide against the tyranny of the world oil economy and its effect on their precarious future.

I read with mirth the full-page spread about Southern California’s beloved (drips with sarcasm and black goop) offshore oil platforms awaiting removal. I don’t know what was funnier, the claim that more oil production means less seepage, or the spin about oil rigs becoming reefs.

If anybody believes these rigs are indeed artificial reefs, I have a million old shopping carts to sell you.

Joey Racano, Los Osos

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