Dana Point : Riley Withdraws Motion on Cousteau Proposal

County Supervisor Thomas F. Riley balked Tuesday at initiating action that could lead to construction of a public educational facility in Dana Point operated by the Cousteau Society, a group headed by famed ocean explorer and environmentalist Jacques-Yves Cousteau.

Riley withdrew a motion he had submitted to supervisors calling for a $15,000 allocation to study the viability of the project.

Riley said he was unaware until Monday that the facility, which would be at the west end of Dana Point Harbor in the immediate area of the Orange County Marine Institute, was not supported by “all those who have an interest in Dana Point Harbor’s development.”

Chief among those expressing reservations were backers of the Marine Institute, a county-run, ocean-oriented educational facility that has lacked the funding to fully realize its own ambitions since it was conceived in 1968.

Riley said he met Monday with Stanley L. Cummings, the institute’s executive director, and that Cummings told him the Cousteau proposal could jeopardize the institute’s fund-raising effort.

The supervisor said he probably will resubmit the Cousteau proposal, although it may be reworded to provide for a joint effort by the Cousteau Society and the institute. He said he has not abandoned his support of the institute, but wants to examine alternatives because of costs associated with its planned expansion and maintenance.

Cummings said in an interview that the institute is hoping to raise money from private sources to help purchase the Pilgrim, a brig modeled after a 19th-Century vessel and now moored in the harbor, and for part of a $6- to $7-million expansion of the institute to more than 10 times its current 3,800 square feet.

Public funding, which will probably be at least half of what is needed, would come from the county, according to Riley.

Cousteau Society Vice President Charles W. Vinick said from the society’s Norfolk, Va., headquarters that any Cousteau facility also would be primarily educational and focused on children, though it would serve all age groups.