Agreement Provides 5 More Years of Scouting at Camp Emerald Bay : Development: Lease calls for fewer boys per session. A consortium of Scout councils will run the camp and find a new site when the lease expires.

Thanks to an agreement between the Santa Catalina Island Company and regional officials for the Boy Scouts of America, Scouts from across Southern California will again be celebrating the Fourth of July weekend at historic Camp Emerald Bay on Catalina Island.

Operated by the Western Los Angeles County Council of the Boy Scouts of America since 1925, Camp Emerald Bay had long been a local summer Scouting fixture until last year, when it seemed that the Scouts were about to lose their lease.

Today, for the first time, the camp--its buildings repainted and its area spruced up--is being run as a regional camp by a consortium of Scout councils, rather than by the western council alone.

The reprieve came as part of an agreement to let the Scouts stay on Emerald Bay for five more years, after which they will select a new campsite, said Scout and island company officials.

The island company owns most of the developable shore property on Catalina. Its long-range plans call for new recreational developments in many of the inlets and coves, including Emerald Bay. Last summer the company announced it would not renew the Scouts’ expiring lease on Emerald Bay, touching off a furor of concern over the future of the Scout camp.

A company spokesman said the heavy impact of 3,100 Scouts trooping through each summer simply didn’t fit the firm’s plans.

“We’re not picking on the Boy Scouts,” Paxson H. Offield, company president, said at the time. Changes at Emerald Bay were just part of the new plans, he said.

“We’re looking at all of our coves . . . to develop more environmentally sensitive, year-round uses.”

In place of the Scouts, the Cousteau Society had been invited to develop a marine science center and resort at Emerald Bay, officials said. The Scouts, surprised by the news, donned their uniforms and picketed the Cousteau offices in Los Angeles.

Society officials in New York later announced they were canceling their Emerald Bay project, without explaining why, although the decision may have been influenced by the controversy.

During the winter, Scout leaders and company officials met to work out a compromise that would eventually free Emerald Bay for development and give the Scouts a new site elsewhere on the island.

Under the terms of the new lease, a consortium of 10 Southern California Scout councils will run the camp and develop plans to expand it to regional operations in a new location.

“Eventually, we want a year-round camping and education center for Scouting on Catalina,” said Kent Gibbs, executive director for the Orange County council. Until the 10-council consortium is legally formed to take over the property, the lease will be held in the Orange County council’s name, he said.

The consortium initially will include councils from Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties. Councils from Ventura, Riverside and San Bernardino may also join, Gibbs said.

“Everyone understands Emerald Bay isn’t the best site for a huge number of kids to come to every summer,” company spokeswoman Keven Bellows said, adding that the company will work with Scout officials in finding and developing a new site.

This summer, the Orange County council will hold the lease, and the Western Los Angeles council will operate the camp for the consortium. The biggest change this summer will be a reduction in the number of campers.

Under the agreement, the number of Scouts will be cut back to about 300 per camping session, instead of the 400 or so previously brought in. By summer’s end, 2,200 Scouts throughout Southern California will have gone to camp, 900 less than the year before, officials said.

When the consortium takes over the lease in October, it will signal a major break from the past, when each council ran its own camps, Gibb said.

“Nowadays, the new concept is regional camping. The 10 councils will consolidate their camping programs,” he said.