The morning after the 2021 oil spill off Huntington Beach, the air smelled like asphalt. Beaches were roped off with yellow tape. Seabirds flailed helplessly in the tar. Dead fish floated in a black pool of oil at the Santa Ana Rivermouth. The Pacific Air Show was cancelled. Lifeguard towers stood empty, restaurants locked their doors, and the small businesses that depend on a clean, open coastline watched their livelihoods vanish overnight.
For weeks, tourists canceled hotel reservations and rental bookings. Entire coastal towns – places that come alive on weekends with families, anglers, and vacationers – fell silent. Lost visitors and an ocean awash in toxic oil meant lost income for hundreds of other local businesses: hotels, fishermen, restaurants, surf shops, tour guides.
That’s what an oil spill does – it devastates our beaches, our wildlife, and our economy.
Unfortunately, the federal government doesn’t appear interested in learning from this brutal lesson from our county’s recent history.
Last November, the US Department of Interior proposed to open all federal waters off California to new ocean drilling by holding the first West Coast offshore oil and gas lease sales in more than 40 years. The response from our state was swift, vast, and bipartisan. The Interior Department reportedly received more than 300,000 letters from the public opposing their drilling plan. Governor Newsom rightly asked why the waters off Mar-a-Lago were excluded from it. And Republican Assemblymember Laurie Davies from Laguna Niguel announced she is officially a “hell no” on the proposal, joining 45 other legislators to co-author a bipartisan anti-offshore drilling resolution introduced in the Capitol last month.
Yet on January 26, just two days after the closure of Interior Department’s public comment period for the proposed drilling plan, the federal agency unexpectedly announced they are moving ahead to identify specific areas for development for all federal waters between San Diego and Mendocino County, fast-tracking the process toward lease sales in 2027. It’s as if our federal government completely ignored those 300,000 public comments on the future of our shared coast.
The January announcement revealed two critical facts about the federal drilling agenda: the threat of new and expanded drilling up and down the West Coast is very real, and the threat is urgent for Orange County’s residents, business owners, and environment.
We need to speak louder, and the business community is ready to do so.
The Business Alliance for Protecting the Pacific Coast (BAPPC) represents more than 8,175 West Coast companies that agree that our prosperity and our quality of life depend on a clean and healthy coast, and that new offshore drilling – and the spills that go with it – make no sense for our communities or our economy.
California’s coastal counties are an absolute powerhouse, generating around 80 percent of the state’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) while covering just 22 percent of its land area. Coastal recreation and tourism are a major economic driver, supporting more than 441,000 jobs and generating more than $26 billion in GDP. Visitors, workers, and business owners are attracted to our coast because it’s beautiful and a great place to live, not because of oil rigs.
The federal plan puts this all at risk. The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill stained more than 1300 miles of the Gulf Coast, greater than the full length of the California coastline, and shuttered coastal businesses for months and even years. Why should we sacrifice our diverse, vibrant coastal economy for one risky special interest?
BAPPC and our members are making our voices heard about the Interior Department’s new announcement – making the case that new drilling they’re seeking to impose on Orange County and the rest of coastal California is simply inconsistent with the economic prosperity of our country and our state. I encourage all of us who care about the future of our cherished coast to do the same.
Grant Bixby is Principal Broker of Bixby Residential Group in Newport Beach, and a Founding Member of the Business Alliance for Protecting the Pacific Coast. He lives in Newport Beach.
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