2-1 Ratio, UCI Poll Shows : Orange County Residents Oppose Offshore Drilling

Whether they live on the coast or inland, Orange County residents are solidly opposed to offshore oil drilling by a ratio of almost 2 to 1, a UC Irvine survey shows.

That opposition--60% of those polled were opposed to offshore drilling, 34% favored it and 6% were undecided--cuts across geographic, economic, age and sex boundaries, as well as political party affiliation, said Mark Baldassare, who directs UCI’s annual county survey from which the results were taken.

Among coastal residents surveyed, 63% were against oil drilling off the county’s coast in the next five years, while 59% of the inland residents opposed it, results released Friday showed.

“The fact that residents on the coast and residents inland both are concerned about what is going on off Orange County’s beaches is probably the single most important finding,” said Baldassare, an associate professor of social ecology. “It’s not in any way a regional or community issue; it is a countywide concern.

“The average Orange County resident considers the beach their backyard, whether they have beachfront property or live in Brea or Fullerton. They want to know it is protected from any danger of pollution.”

The poll results contrasted starkly with recent statements by some offshore drilling advocates, especially Rep. William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton), who have characterized foes of drilling as mainly elitist coastal residents who are in the minority in Orange County and elsewhere.

A majority of Republicans--54%--opposed offshore oil drilling, as did 67% of Democrats surveyed. Among independent voters, 63% opposed it, and 67% of the respondents who listed their affiliation as “other” were against offshore drilling.

The survey of 1,008 representative adult residents was conducted in June--more than a month before offshore oil exploration became a controversial local issue when a federal plan to open 54 square miles off Orange County was unveiled July 16 as part of a compromise to spare nearly 98% of the state’s coastal waters.

The findings are consistent with results of past annual surveys since 1981 that show Orange County residents to be “very very concerned about possible pollutants in their environment,” Baldassare said. “Whether it’s concern for toxic waste, pollution in the air or water, they are almost more concerned about that than anything else.”

Their concerns also reflect the fact that people in Orange County tend to be better educated, more affluent, white and more likely to own homes than the national or statewide average, Baldassare said.

Yet even respondents with incomes of less than $15,000 a year opposed offshore oil drilling by 53%, the results showed.

In only one sample group, those 65 and older, did a plurality (49%) of those polled favor drilling; 42% were opposed and 9% were undecided.

“There certainly isn’t overwhelming support (for offshore drilling) in that group either,” Baldassare said, adding that the relatively small sample size of 100 polled in that group raised the margin for error to “plus or minus 10%.”

While people in groups from 18 to 44 years of age opposed offshore drilling by 64% or more, that opposition appeared to decline in older age groups. Respondents in the 45-to-54-year-old category opposed drilling by 56%, and those in the 55-to-64-year-old range opposed it by a bare 50%, with 40% in favor and 10% undecided.

Baldassare speculated that “younger generations tend to be more future-oriented, more concerned about decisions made today that may have implications for the environment 5, 10 and 20 years down the road.”

Women, too, were more likely to oppose offshore drilling than men. Of those surveyed, 64% of the women respondents were against it, compared to 56% of the men surveyed.

Suggests Another Survey

The results were wholeheartedly embraced by members of a coalition of four coastal cities mobilizing to persuade U.S. Interior Secretary Donald P. Hodel not to open the proposed six tracts off Huntington Beach, Newport Beach and Laguna Beach to oil and gas exploration.

“It’s important that these responses came in even before any of the flap over this very controversial compromise,” Newport Beach City Councilwoman Evelyn Hart said, adding that the results echoed her own sentiments.

“I think there should be another survey done now,” said Hart, a Newport Beach representative to the coalition of Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, Laguna Beach and San Clemente campaigning to change Hodel’s mind.

“I imagine there would even be stronger opposition. Before, people didn’t even consider the threat. Now that there really is a threat that an environmental disaster could happen right here, I think even more people would be opposed.”

However, Rep. Dannemeyer, a longtime supporter of offshore drilling as a way of reducing dependence on foreign oil and improving the foreign trade balance, questioned the validity of the survey and cited a 1981 Field Enterprise poll that found 49% of the state’s residents favor drilling, compared to 45% opposed.

Dannemeyer suggested that if the survey had been conducted differently, “people might respond differently.”

Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove), who with Dannemeyer and nine other GOP congressmen from California asked President Reagan to scrap the Hodel compromise because too few tracts were opened for oil drilling, also questioned the survey results.

“If you ask the same question in relation to the issue of energy independence, you’d get a totally different poll result,” Dornan said Friday when contacted at Ft. Bragg, N.C., where he was delivering a speech.

Asked if he thought he may be out of step with the thinking of his inland district constituents, Dornan said: “My job is not to be a rubber stamp for any quick poll taken in the district. My job is to study issues with a thoughtful approach, and that sometimes goes against the quick polling of the opinion of voters.”

Dannemeyer, asked if he was in line with his district voters on the issue, said, “That’s for my constituents to decide. I have given them my best judgment about what policy alternatives we should pursue.”

The Hodel compromise, hammered out in negotiations last month between the Interior secretary and members of the California congressional delegation, would lift a 4-year-old moratorium to oil and gas exploration for 1,350 square miles of ocean floor, two-thirds of it in the Eel River Basin off Humboldt Bay in extreme northern California.

The remaining areas proposed for lease include 126 square miles off Santa Maria; 198 square miles of the outer Santa Monica Bay; 36 square miles off Long Beach; 54 square miles off Huntington Beach, Newport Beach and Laguna Beach; and 45 square miles off Oceanside.

The agreement protects Big Sur, the San Francisco coast and peninsula, the Farallon Islands, the Mendocino coast, Point Reyes, the Bodega Basin and military areas, including those off southern San Diego County.