Piers May Become Park Site

Ventura County’s cash-strapped parks system may be adding a popular beach to its inventory.

County supervisors Tuesday approved a conceptual plan to acquire the Mobil piers beach area near Seacliff and turn it into the county’s fourth beachfront park.

The move comes as Mobil Oil prepares to dismantle two piers that have helped the oil giant tap the Earth’s reservoirs for oil and gas since the early 1930s.

“The north coast is our most popular recreational area” and acquiring the Mobil property for a park would provide a needed service, said Blake Boyle, deputy director of the Ventura County Parks Department.

Meanwhile, surfing enthusiasts concerned that removal of the piers will destroy a popular surf break have created a nonprofit organization that hopes to work with the county on the project.

Their vision is to recycle the piers’ thick wooden planks to create a 1,000-foot-long coastal boardwalk while also building the world’s first artificial surfing reef just offshore.

“It opens up an opportunity for a public-private partnership,” said Brian Brennan, past president of the Surfrider Foundation and member of the newly formed Coastal Preservation Research Foundation. “It’s a different kind of thinking, a different kind of outside-the-box approach.”

More than six decades of oil and natural gas production off the piers came to an end in 1993 after Mobil decided that it no longer was economical. All 37 wells drilled there were plugged and abandoned the following year.

While they may have been ugly, the oil piers became part of a unique beach culture. Surfers say the pilings are responsible for attractive left- and right-breaking waves that beckoned them when other surf breaks were erased by high winds and choppy surf.

Jet skiers found refuge in the lax enforcement by the county that allowed them to jump waves, ride near swimmers, and zig-zag in and out of the pier pilings.

And swimmers and sunbathers were lured by the area’s warm, wind-shielded microclimate that made for sunny days at “Oil Piers,” as the beach is affectionately called, when other area beaches were socked in with fog.

But as great an opportunity as acquiring the area may be, the proposal has come at an uncertain time for the county parks system.

Just this month, supervisors voted to end a $1-million annual subsidy from Channel Islands Harbor that has kept the system alive for nearly two decades.

Spurred by declining business at the harbor that has slashed into profits and tax proceeds alike, the move has prompted top county parks, harbor and administrative officials to reevaluate parks and harbor finances.

Officials are scheduled to return to the Board of Supervisors by February with long-term recommendations on how the parks should be funded.

But Boyle promises that a county park at Mobil piers would be a break-even venture.

Mobil Oil has agreed to grant the county $100,000 to turn the company’s bumpy old access road leading to the piers into a 54-space parking lot and 10-space recreational vehicle camping area.

Fees from the lot and RV camping area, coupled with a share of the income earned by vendors selling the likes of soda pop and suntan lotion there would cover the cost of maintaining the park.

Officials estimate that it would cost $52,000 annually to maintain the park and estimate that fees would generate $54,000 each year.

Supervisor Kathy Long said that although the projected profit margin is slim, the chance to increase coastal access to the public can’t be missed.

“The more coastal access you can gain, hooray, hooray for the public,” she said. “We can make it work.”

The park could open as soon as November 1998, Boyle said.

With the county’s bottom line for acquiring the park dependent on the ability to generate cash from users, supervisors gave the surfing contingent a lukewarm response to its vision for the park, which includes placing parking areas on the other side of the Ventura Freeway and converting the access road into a park made up of sand, trees and the boardwalk.

“The county parks are struggling,” Long said. “Parks aren’t just pretty places anymore. Parks are places that are going to have to be self-sufficient in many ways.”

At the heart of the surfers’ interest in an artificial reef is their belief that the piers’ hundreds of pilings create perfect conditions for waves to break by collecting sand that would otherwise be whisked down the shoreline.

Foundation members, however, believe that if they are able to obtain a permit from the California Coastal Commission and a handful of other agencies to sink the polyethylene surfing reef onto the ocean floor, the spot will become a mecca for surfers who will fill the pay parking lots and the county’s coffers.

“The county’s bottom line is revenue-driven,” said Glenn Hening of Oxnard, who founded the Surfrider Foundation and is a key player in plans to build a surfing reef at the piers. “We can be part of their revenue equation.”

Mobil officials gained permission from the State Lands Commission on Nov. 7 to dismantle the pier complex but still need the approval of the Coastal Commission, which will consider the request Dec. 10.

Company officials have said the $5-million dismantling project will take about nine months to complete.

When the piers are removed, the state lease that Mobil has held since the piers were built during Ventura County’s oil boom days will be terminated.

The county, in turn, would look to acquire the land from the State Lands Commission through a 25-year, rent-free recreational-use lease.

Under the county’s early plans for the park, parking near the beach would cost $1 on weekdays and $3 on weekends. A no-charge overflow lot would be built on the other side of the freeway.

County officials are also exploring the potential for leaving the beach-perched bases of both piers standing to create observation decks. Such a move would require approvals from both the State Lands Commission and California Coastal Commission.

The conversion plan won the approval of the county’s Parks Advisory Commission on Nov. 10.

Following the board’s conceptual approval Tuesday, supervisors will need to consider a package of approvals in coming months before the plans become final, including the approval of lease and easement agreements with the state, review of the county’s potential liability and a formal agreement with Mobil to secure the $100,000 grant.