N. County May Avoid Sea Drilling, Hodel Says

U.S. Interior Secretary Donald P. Hodel said Saturday there is “a possibility” that North County may escape inclusion in a program that would open 150 offshore tracts to oil drilling along the California coast.

Speaking to reporters after a public hearing here, Hodel said that whether five tracts already tentatively identified for drilling off Oceanside and Carlsbad are eventually opened to oil leasing is “a resource question.”

“We have to talk about where the best opportunity for resources exists and then look at how we match that up with the areas of concern from an environmental standpoint,” Hodel said. “I can’t give you any kind of weather forecast type number, like a 30% chance of rain number, but I have to say that it’s not impossible (that the North County tracts may be scrapped).”

Meanwhile, Rep. Ron Packard (R-Carlsbad) said Saturday that new geological data indicates the Department of the Interior has identified additional nine-square-mile drilling tracts off of San Diego County--reportedly between Oceanside and La Jolla--as possibly being suitable for leasing.

Details on the new tracts, such as their number, relative worth in terms of the the amount of oil they may contain and precise location, were unavailable. But Packard said he had been told the areas are of “as great or greater value” than those already identified for drilling.

“These new tracts could definitely change the picture, but we’re not yet sure how,” Packard said. “What this means is that they will be evaluated, like the others, for their resource potential.”

Packard added, however, that the probability of drilling in the newly identified tracts is minimal because of potential interference with military maneuvers that take place off the coast from Leucadia south to San Diego.

Hodel’s appearance here concluded an 11-stop tour of coastal communities he conducted to solicit public comments on a preliminary agreement to allow limited offshore gas and oil development in federal waters off California’s coast.

Under the agreement, crafted earlier this year during negotiations involving Hodel and a handful of congressmen representing California’s districts, 150 of 6,460 tracts in an area currently off-limits to oil companies would be offered for leasing. Leasing of the remaining tracts would be prohibited until the year 2000.

The compromise, which would essentially lift a four-year congressional moratorium on oil exploration off of California, has been attacked by some environmentalists who fear the drilling operations would have an adverse impact on air and water quality.

The plan has also sparked criticism from the oil industry, whose officials say it is both too limited and would open tracts that are of negligible commercial value. That criticism, along with recent geological studies, has prompted Hodel to comment recently that he has doubts about the agreement and expects it will be altered after further discussions with the congressional delegation.

On Saturday, the secretary reiterated that position, saying, “We may well have the wrong 150 (tracts) and we want to make sure we’ve got the right 150.”

That was good news for North County officials, who maintain that tracts off the San Diego coast have historically been of limited interest to the oil industry and should not be opened.

And Packard heralded Hodel’s apparent flexibility on the issue as a sign that, “Hopefully, by the luck of the draw, San Diego County will be released from having any offshore drilling.”

At the very least, Packard said, the secretary seems amenable “to moving the tracts from their present location further north and as far from Oceanside as possible.”

The North County tracts under consideration lie from three to 25 miles offshore between the northern edge of Oceanside and Leucadia. The congressman, attempting to blunt local criticism of the agreement, has requested that they be relocated to less objectionable waters about nine miles north of downtown Oceanside off Camp Pendleton.

Hodel called Packard’s proposal “interesting,” but said he could offer no evaluation of its potential because, “I don’t yet know what the resource trade-offs would be.”

Additional geological studies are in order, Hodel said, before a final determination of the appropriate tracts is made. The secretary said he hopes to have a final compromise hammered out by the end of September, when the moratorium expires.

A long parade of environmentalists, residents and local government officials took time out from Labor Day weekend activities to testify at Saturday’s hearing. The majority of speakers attacked the plan to open San Diego County’s coastline to drilling, with its impact on air quality, tourism and quality of life constituting the major objections.

“As far as the City of Oceanside is concerned, your proposal for allowing OCS (offshore continental shelf) leasing off the San Diego coastline is playing Russian roulette with our region’s economic health and environmental quality,” Oceanside Mayor Larry Bagley said. “The proposal to move the tracts further north off of Camp Pendleton simply moves the bullet into another chamber, and is not acceptable to the city.”

And, echoing threats made by officials in numerous other communities, Bagley told Hodel: “Congress has its role in legislation, your department has its role in regulation. Don’t make our only role litigation.”

But several people took the podium to counter arguments that drilling would damage the environment and to urge the secretary to open up more than the 150 tracts proposed under the compromise.

“There is no evidence that has linked offshore oil and gas development with any significant and in most cases detectable impact, medium or long-term, on any aspect of the environment,” said Frank Montestero, an Encinitas resident who conducted studies on the environmental impact of offshore drilling operations while an employee of the Bureau of Land Management.

“The idea that offshore oil and gas activity will degrade environmental quality is one that has been proffered by the uninformed or publicity seekers,” Montestero said. “The real facts are available in thousands of pages of data available to you, to the public.”