Offshore Oil Moratorium
Your editorial conjectured that the recent proposal to open up 150 tracts to oil drilling off the California coast indicates that “the winners may be all of the people of California.” For the millions, most of them Californians, who enjoy Laguna Beach each year, the plan is a disaster.
The proposed platforms off Laguna and Newport would all be visible from the beach. The smell of diesel fuel from engines used in drilling would be blown to land by the coastal airflow. Laguna Beach is an official marine life and bird sanctuary; one spill would devastate this life and would be extremely hard to clean up because of Laguna’s many rocky coves.
The beach communities do indeed feel they have been sold out by other California congressmen who choose to ignore the facts in order to save their own districts. We must insist on being included in the drilling moratorium for the same sound reasons that would protect their own areas.
ROGER J. OWENS
Laguna Beach
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