Feeling ‘Victimized’ : Oceanside Set to Fight Offshore Drilling Plan

With one member protesting that Oceanside is being used as a “sacrificial lamb” in negotiations over offshore oil exploration in California, the City Council on Wednesday vowed to go to the mat in fighting a proposal that would open up five tracts to oil drilling off the North San Diego County coast.

“I’m feeling somewhat victimized by the fact that Oceanside has been singled out in this (oil) leasing scenario,” Councilman Ted Marioncelli said.

Councilman Walter Gilbert agreed: “It looks to me like we’re going to get stuck in the neck, but nobody else in San Diego is. I don’t like that at all.”

The council was responding to a recent agreement between the Interior Department and key California legislators to relax a four-year congressional ban on oil exploration off the state’s coast. The proposal, crafted during talks involving Interior Secretary Donald P. Hodel and five congressmen, would allow drilling in 150 tracts, each nine square miles in size. Drilling in the areas is now prohibited.

In exchange for leasing rights in those areas, the oil industry would be denied access to another 6,250 ocean-bottom tracts until after the year 2000.

Five of the tracts to be opened are along a 7-mile stretch of coastline from northern Oceanside to southern Carlsbad, sitting from 3 to 12 miles offshore. Nine oil companies have reportedly expressed tentative interest in the North County tracts.

Local Sierra Club leaders have attacked the compromise as a capitulation to the oil industry, arguing that efforts to renew and strengthen the drilling moratorium should be pursued. Of particular concern to the environmentalists is the impact operations would have on air quality.

Oceanside officials share such fears, and stated them clearly on Wednesday. The city’s special projects director, Dana Whitson, told the council that the effects of offshore drilling on Oceanside would be “far reaching.”

In addition to a decline in air quality, the city would face the possibility of oil spills and interference with recreational, commercial and military vessels caused by oil tankers operating in the area, Whitson said. Aesthetics is another concern, as platforms are likely to be visible on the horizon.

Since details of the proposal were released, officials from both Oceanside and Carlsbad have questioned why they got stuck with five leasing tracts when many other coastal cities expected to have similar reserves were exempted.

“I want to know how come they saddled us with these things and didn’t give any to Del Mar or San Clemente?” Councilman Sam Williamson asked Wednesday. “Why us?”

No answer to that question has emerged, although Whitson noted that on a scale of 1 to 10, the level of industry interest in Oceanside’s offshore oil potential consistently measures 8 or 9.

Meanwhile, city officials have announced that Hodel will journey to Oceanside next month to discuss the compromise. In anticipation of his visit, council members directed their staff to prepare a resolution stating the city’s firm opposition to any drilling off their coast.

“What we’ve got to do is change the secretary’s mind and make him realize that this is not a good idea,” Councilman Ted Marioncelli said.