Oil Firm to Buy Ad Saying Beaches Are Clean Again

Most of the oil may be gone, but city officials fret that the memory of gooey crude sliming some of the world’s most famous beaches is still distressingly fresh.

That’s why government and tourism officials are jumping at an offer by British Petroleum to pay for a $73,000 full-page, color advertisement in a national newspaper announcing that local beaches are now clean and open.

“We’re ready for people to hit the beaches again,” Huntington Beach Mayor Thomas J. Mays said Thursday. “And if British Petroleum wants to help spread that word, we’re all for it.”

With spring fast approaching, and thoughts turning to sand, surf and suntans, nervous Huntington Beach business leaders are worried that tourists might take their vacation dollars elsewhere in the wake of last months’s 394,000-gallon spill from the tanker American Trader. Bearing storage tanks full of British Petroleum oil, the ship ran over its own anchor while attempting to moor at an offshore pipeline.

The advertising plans are still sketchy, officials warned, and no prototype has been developed.

But Newport Beach is likely to be included in the campaign, though tourist officials there express confidence that the city’s ritzy reputation remains intact. Despite the fact that some of the city’s oil-stained beaches have been closed for more than a month because of health and safety concerns, one official said that the publicity may have actually been a boon.

“The media carried the spill nationally for a number of days, but I’m not sure that was all bad,” said Richard Gartrell, president of the Newport Beach Conference and Visitors Bureau. “There are some folks back East that probably didn’t know where we are. But now they do.”

Officials in Huntington Beach, however, said the crude that fouled more than 8 1/2 miles of city and state beaches couldn’t have come at a worse time. Orange County’s third largest city is embarking on a bid to become a major Southern California tourist stop in a market already saturated with seaside resorts. The city’s waterfront near the municipal pier is undergoing a multimillion-dollar face-lift, with plans for at least four major hotels. The city’s first visitors and conference bureau was opened just four months ago.

Then, crude oil from the damaged tanker American Trader started washing up and Huntington Beach became a well-known dateline.

“It was publicity--but for all the wrong reasons,” said Diane Baker, executive director of the city’s visitors’ bureau. “I was just at a travel convention in the East and 9 out of 10 people would come and see the city’s name on our booth. They would tell us how sorry they were and ask how bad is it. I spent the whole time trying to convince people: ‘It’s over; the beaches are cleaner than ever.’ ”

To deliver just that message, Mays and other city officials approached British Petroleum about helping polish the city’s soiled name. British Petroleum agreed, and Wednesday night company representatives met with officials from Huntington and Newport to start devising an advertising strategy. Oil company spokesman Chuck Webster said that BP officials recommended placing a full-page color ad in a national publication such as USA Today, adding that the ad would probably cost about $73,000.

“We kept hearing concerns that the oil had damaged business, particularly tourism, and we wanted to help,” Webster explained, “particularly with Easter and spring breaks coming. We suggested running an ad announcing that the best beaches in the West were open again. This is a super vacation spot and we think America should know that.”

Running ads after a major disaster is not unprecedented. After last October’s San Francisco earthquake, officials in that city spent more than $300,000 to run ads in 15 major newspapers to encourage visitors to return.

On Thursday, a Newport Beach public relations firm issued a national news release proclaiming the shores of Huntington Beach to be open and inviting “visitors, business travelers and local residents to enjoy the city’s 8 1/2 miles of uninterrupted, white sandy coastline.”

Not all of the beach is open, however.

Workers were still cleaning rocks and jetties in the Santa Ana River area and around Bolsa Chica Bluffs. And a 4 1/2-mile stretch of sand is serving as a staging area for cleanup crews. But officials said it is possible that all of the beaches could be opened by the end of the weekend.

Thursday night, Huntington Beach City Administrator Michael Uberuaga called on officials of BP and American Trading Transportation, owner of the tanker, to step up efforts to repay small business owners affected by the disaster.

Uberuaga, speaking at a meeting between about 25 merchants and officials from the two firms, urged BP and American Trading to make immediate partial payments to business owners unable to pay rent and other short-term obligations.

The two firms “should set up a special procedure for immediate relief, and then deal with long-term relief later,” Uberuaga said.

John Nolan, American Trading’s claim manager, balked at promising immediate payments but said he would “certainly explore that as a possibility.”