Scouts Agree to Lease on Catalina Camp : Compromise: They can stay for five more years at Emerald Bay on condition that they establish a new site.

Boy Scouts from across Southern California are again celebrating the Fourth of July weekend at historic Camp Emerald Bay on Santa Catalina Island.

Overcoming earlier difficulties, the Santa Catalina Island Co. and Orange County Scout officials have agreed to a new five-year lease on the 67-year-old campsite, clearing the way for the first boatload of Scouts to arrive today.

Leased by the Orange County Council but operated by the Western Los Angeles County Council of the Boy Scouts of America since 1925, Camp Emerald Bay has long been a local summer Scouting fixture--until last year, when it appeared that the Scouts were about to lose their lease.

Today the camp’s old buildings have a fresh coat of paint, and the area has been spruced up. For the first time, it is being run by a consortium of Scout councils as a regional camp, rather than by the Western Council alone.

The reprieve came as part of an agreement to let the Scouts stay for five more years on Emerald Bay, if they agreed to select a new camp site after that, both sides said.

“Eventually, we want a year-round camping and education center for Scouting on Catalina,” said Kent Gibbs, executive director for the Orange County Council.

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 that it would not renew the Scouts’ expiring lease on Emerald Bay, touching off a furor amid concerns over the camp’s future.

A company spokesman explained that the heavy impact of 3,100 Scouts trooping through each summer simply did not 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 news caught the Scouts by surprise, leading to uniformed Scouts picketing the Cousteau offices in Los Angeles.

Society officials in New York later announced they were canceling their Emerald Bay project and did not explain why.

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 on the island.

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

Until the 10-council consortium is legally formed to take over the property, the lease is held in the Orange County Council’s name. The consortium will initially include councils from Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties. Councils from Ventura, Riverside and San Bernardino may also join, Gibbs said.

The lease gives the Scouts five years to find a new site for a year-round center.

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