Battle Over Offshore Oil to Intensify

Still reeling from the Reagan Administration’s announcement Monday that millions of acres of California coastline would be opened up to future offshore oil and gas exploration, Orange County officials vowed Tuesday to continue working to save their shores.

For the past several months, local lawmakers have been gearing up for a fight to keep the county’s coastline free of more offshore drilling. They have lobbied in Washington, written grant proposals and instituted studies to gauge the potential damage such drilling could cause.

Those efforts took on new importance Monday when U.S. Interior Secretary Donald P. Hodel unveiled revisions to a five-year oil and gas leasing plan for California that proposes opening up most of the county’s coast to drilling within three miles of the beach.

Buffer Zone Proposed

Hodel’s plan would also create a so-called “buffer zone” that would prohibit drilling closer than six miles from shore between Newport Beach and Dana Point.

“There is certainly nothing in Mr. Hodel’s plan that should engender a sense of protection in Orange County,” said Richard Charter, a lobbyist for California coastal counties and cities, including those in Orange County. “Hodel hopes to accomplish leasing in sensitive areas by giving the oil industry a foot in the door six miles offshore now, and then at the end of five years, drilling can come right up to the state waters.”

Tract No. 95--which includes Orange County’s 30-plus miles of shoreline--will be formally proposed for leasing in March, followed by a series of public hearings. But bidding will not open for another two years, officials said.

By the time the Orange County coastline is opened up to bids from companies interested in exploring for oil and gas deposits offshore, officials for the county and the cities of Huntington Beach, Laguna Beach, Newport Beach and San Clemente hope to have hard facts to support their contention that offshore drilling is unsafe and bad for their tourist economies and the environment and therefore should be banned from their shores.

Los Angeles and Orange counties, working with the Southern California Assn. of Governments, have commissioned a study of the regional impacts of oil and gas drilling on air quality, the marine environment and existing onshore oil production facilities.

Federal Grant

In the next three months, the association will receive $200,000 in federal grant money to begin the two-year study, which San Diego County officials are considering joining. Catherine Tyrrell, a principal planner with the association, said counties can expect results as early as nine months after work begins.

“We’re trying not to work (to protect the coastline) in the vacuum we did in the past,” Newport Beach Mayor Pro Tem Evelyn Hart said. The city has long opposed offshore drilling but has not had facts to back up its position, she said, adding that she hopes this study should give local governments the ammunition they need.

“Hodel’s proposal is not the one that will work for Orange County,” Hart said. “After all, it only takes one oil spill.”

Newport Beach also has joined with Laguna Beach and San Clemente to seek a similar study of the impact of offshore drilling on air quality, tourism, marine life, pleasure boating, sport and commercial fishing, and beach cleanliness.

The Huntington Beach City Council voted Monday--just hours after Hodel announced the lease plan--to join the other three beach cities in applying for a $168,000 federal grant for the study. If the grant is approved, the cities could expect results by March, 1989.

Impact on Tourism

Huntington Beach Mayor Pro Tem John Erskine said Tuesday that “the timing (of the council’s vote) is very fortuitous.” Hodel’s proposal “has a possible major impact on the viability of our coastline,” Erskine said, adding that he was opposed to the plan “because of its impact on our burgeoning tourism business.”

But Charter said Tuesday that local governments alone cannot battle the five-year plan proposed by the Administration. “Local governments at this point will be looking to Congress to provide the stewardship (that) the California coast clearly deserves,” he said.

Charter said a one-year moratorium on all new offshore oil drilling beginning in 1989 is being considered. In addition, Reps. Barbara Boxer (D-Greenbrae) and Mel Levine (D-Santa Monica) introduced legislation Tuesday that would bar any further oil development within 200 miles of the California coast.

Boxer acknowledged Tuesday that both she and Levine know that President Reagan would never sign a bill creating an “ocean sanctuary” off the California coast, assuming they could win the necessary votes for passage in Congress. But she said the sanctuary plan was the best “long-lasting solution” to coastline preservation.

Sanctuary Plan

The proposed ocean sanctuary would stretch out 203 miles from the coastline, but it would not affect the first three miles offshore that is controlled by the state, she said.

An unrelated national “oceanic park” has been proposed for the waters off Orange County to Catalina Island by Laguna Beach City Councilman Robert F. Gentry. Tuesday night, San Juan Capistrano joined the cities of Huntington Beach, Irvine, Laguna Beach and Newport Beach, plus the Municipal Advisory Committee of unincorporated Laguna Niguel, in supporting legislation to create such a national park.

Meanwhile, members of the California delegation, led by Rep. Leon E. Panetta (D-Monterey), said they also will continue to work with the Interior Department on updating the five-year plan for offshore protection and energy exploration.

“It’s time for the people of California to be heard,” Boxer said. “We’re putting the bill out there to gain enormous (grass-roots) momentum . . . and we’re sure it will. . . . Our magnificent coast is not negotiable.”

Times staff writer Jim Schachter contributed to this story from Washington.