Bill to Amend Coastal Act for Disney Project Comes Under Fire

Some of the nation’s most powerful environmental groups stepped up their efforts Friday to block state legislation that would allow the Walt Disney Co. to build a $2.8-billion resort along the Long Beach shore, arguing that such a bill could endanger 1,100 miles of California coastline.

Calling the Disney bill “special-interest legislation of the worst kind,” environmentalists said it would seriously weaken the California Coastal Act that for 25 years has helped protect the shoreline from unrestrained development and offshore oil drilling.

“If we have to stand in line to ride the Matterhorn, Mickey Mouse should stand in line for a Coastal Commission permit,” Bob Hattoy of the Sierra Club said, accusing Disney of trying to push the project through Sacramento.

The Disney company has proposed building Port Disney, a mammoth resort and theme park in the Long Beach Harbor that would require the filling of 250 acres. The Coastal Act, environmentalists argue, says filled land cannot be used for recreational purposes.

The legislation would allow an exception for the Disney project and, opponents contend, set a dangerous precedent for more development along the coastline.

They also warn that the Port Disney plan could destroy a marine habitat that helps support the California brown pelican, threaten millions of dollars in federal funds and open the door for offshore oil drilling up and down the coast.

The Sierra Club, the American Oceans Campaign, Common Cause and other groups have spent weeks lobbying in Sacramento to head off the bill, which is scheduled to be heard Tuesday by the Senate Natural Resources and Wildlife Committee. They made their fight public Friday at a press conference at the Long Beach waterfront where Disney might build.

While Disney officials say the bill is too narrowly worded to set a precedent for other developers, environmentalists say any amendment to the Coastal Act is unacceptable.

“Disney needs to make their project conform to the law, not the law conform to their project,” said Robert Sulnick, executive director of the American Oceans Campaign. “We don’t want other people to go to the Legislature and say, ‘Well, Senator X, Disney did it. . . .’ ”

The federal government has threatened to cut off $2 million a year in funding if the Coastal Act is amended, Sulnick said. Weakening the act will also make it more difficult to protect the coast from offshore oil drilling that the Bush Administration seeks to begin off California as early as 1996, he said.

“We don’t want to lose that protection,” Sulnick said. “And to lose it over a theme park? That’s crazy.”

David Malmuth, vice president of the Disney Development Co. called the opposition “perplexing.”

Malmuth said the bill supports the spirit of the Coastal Act by providing public access to the shoreline with tree-lined promenades and ocean-front dining. But it is so narrowly worded that it would allow only the Disney project and no other, he said.

Despite weeks of lobbying and millions spent in planning, the Disney corporation has not committed to build Port Disney. Executives promise to built a West Coast resort in either Long Beach or in Anaheim near Disneyland, but they have yet to say which.

Disney’s efforts to amend the Coastal Act for a theme park that might never be built further angered environmentalists working to preserve the integrity of what they say is one of the most important environmental laws of the century.

“There may be a place in Long Beach for Mickey and his friends,” said Lisa Weil of the American Oceans Campaign. “But it cannot be at the expense of the coast.”