A Shore Thing : Note of Protest Sounds at Bolsa Chica on State’s Annual Coastal Cleanup Day

A free Bonnie Raitt mini-concert and a spirited rally aimed at halting development of nearby wetlands drew thousands Saturday afternoon to Bolsa Chica State Beach.

“What a view I have!” Raitt told the crowd during her brief three-song set, the centerpiece of a show that also featured fellow recording artists Graham Nash and Michelle Shocked. “And what a view I want to still have!”

A loud cheer went up in the crowd, which stretched from the parking lot along Pacific Coast Highway to the surf.

Timed to coincide with California’s 12th annual Coastal Cleanup Day, the free concert also was designed to focus attention on “the plight” of Bolsa Chica, organizers said.

Koll Real Estate Group wants to build 3,300 homes in the Bolsa Chica wetlands and on a nearby mesa. Environmentalists, meanwhile, bitterly oppose any building on the largest undeveloped coastal wetlands south of San Francisco.

Many concert-goers Saturday said they were determined to stop Koll. Others freely admitted that their goal was hearing great music.

Asked if he believed in the cause, Ken Murray of Long Beach said flatly:

“I believe in Graham Nash.”

But his companion, Barbara Miller, countered that she felt deeply about the issues involved in the event.

“I’ve always thought the land should be preserved,” she said, settling into her seat several hours before Raitt arrived. “Without the land, we’re not going to have anything.”

On a nearby blanket were Marian Luther and Ann Naftel, also of Long Beach, both of whom said they were committed protesters, fully expecting that Koll will be stopped in its quest to develop Bolsa Chica.

“I think until they actually start building,” Luther said, “there’s hope.”

Organizers had predicted that 10,000 people would attend the free concert, but fewer than half that many were on hand. Besides the sparkling water and a surfing competition, another distraction may have helped keep the crowd thin:

Several hundred yards from the stage was a gray whale, roughly 30 feet in length, which washed ashore sometime Friday night.

Workers from the state Parks and Recreation Department were using bulldozers to bury the whale. The project was expected to take hours, however, and until workers finished, the whale lay on its side in the crashing surf, mesmerizing concert-goers.

“Is this how our children are going to see our coastal wildlife in the future,” said Seal Beach Mayor Gwen Forsythe, one of many speakers to decry the wetlands development. “Washed up on the beach?”

Raitt also mentioned the whale during her performance.

“I think it’s amazing this whale has washed up on the beach today,” she said, raising the possibility that someone had left the whale on the beach to make a statement.

If that were the case, the singer said, “the point is well-taken.”

The concert capped a politically busy week for Raitt, arrested last Sunday along with scores of other protesters in a demonstration against logging in Northern California.

Mentioning her arrest, Raitt implied that she may be entering a new stage in her political activity.

“We’re not going to let [politicians] stay asleep anymore,” she said, “and come alive the last couple months before the election.”

Raitt, who said her grandfather hailed from Santa Ana, recalled a time when the surrounding beach and wetlands were pastoral and unspoiled by civilization.

“My two brothers and I have spent our lives coming down and enjoying this shore,” she said. “There’s enough development in California. Enough already!”