Saving a California Beach Town

Ted Rhodess Blog on the Huffington Post

On June 8, 2010, voters of Carpinteria -- the small California beach town renown for its surfing and coastal beauty -- will face Measure J, a ballot initiative sponsored by Denver-based oil company Venoco, Inc. If passed, a massive 140 foot tall onshore oil rig would be erected to facilitate the slant-drilling of up to 35 wells for 20-30 years, or possibly forever.

Carpinteria incorporated in 1965 to ensure local governance and oversight, preserving its quaint small town feel and designation as the "world's safest beach." Measure J would critically strip Carpinteria of local control and oversight and if not defeated, would set a dangerous precedent for every city and town in California. It would allow for the development of a risky drilling operation adjacent to a residential neighborhood, a harbor seal sanctuary and a nature preserve with few of the local safety measures or mitigation in place that normally a city would require.

At first, it appears so democratic: a young man approaches you asking for your signature on a petition to qualify several "people's initiatives" for the ballot: these petitions will lower your local electrical rates and get rid of all those unsightly oil platforms off our coast in the Santa Barbara Channel.

You sign the man's petitions, thinking, what's the harm? Then you notice one of the petitions, in fact, allows a 14-story high, slant-drilling oil rig to be built onshore right next to a residential neighborhood, a harbor seal sanctuary, and a nature preserve.

When you dig deeper, you discover that this isn't a "people's initiative," but one sponsored by an oil company. An initiative that would allow them to bypass all further local review and oversight for a massive oil and gas development project with so many significant environmental impacts already identified that your City Council would likely never approve it. You also discover that these petition gatherers are outsiders getting paid per signature. And, sure enough, Venoco gets enough signatures to qualify for a municipal initiative.

The oil company's marketing campaign begins in earnest with its paid out-of-town PR people working the spin: if voters approve this measure, millions of dollars will go to the local school district, royalties will make the city coffers flush, and modern technology has made the oil drilling business "safe."

The company's CEO writes personal letters, mass-mailed to every eligible voter. He attempts to marginalize the concerns of your city's attorney, who believes the initiative is illegal and takes the issue to court; your local City Council, who passes a strong resolution in opposition to the measure; and concerned residents, who have studied the four-inch-thick environmental impact report.

A Superior Court Judge, gun shy of pre-election challenges, allows the ballot measure to go forward but strikes out the provision that would have directed money to the local school district. A grassroots organization forms to fight the initiative, a group that includes four former mayors, 16 community organizations, and more than a thousand local residents.

Details in the initiative go to the voters: the measure would grant Venoco a carte blanche, open-ended permit allowing the company later to change the scope of its project without further city or voter approval; the Measure would exempt the oil company from the laws and practices that apply to everyone else; and whatever royalties the project might generate would first have to pass through a cash-strapped state and county under a retired bill that has never been implemented.

Further analysis reveals that the "Yes on J" side has only one donor, Venoco Inc., outspending your "No on Measure J" campaign by 10 to 1 in their attempt to convince the town's 6,000 voters that onshore oil drilling will be safe and beneficial.

Suddenly, newspaper headlines about BP's Deepwater Horizon catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico greet you. You read that previously BP had filed a plan with the Minerals Management Service (MMS) for their drilling operation repeatedly claiming that it was "virtually impossible for an accident to occur." You note that MMS, the agency that once gave a "safety" award to Venoco, also recognized BP in 2009 and 2010 as a finalist for "outstanding safety and pollution prevention."

Now, stepping forward as co-chair of this grassroots group to defeat Venoco's attempted takeover of your town, you are attacked because you referred to your opponents as "Big Oil." Apparently, Venoco's reported total revenue for 2009 of $272 million and long-term debt of $695 million isn't "Big" by industry standards. However, it seems plenty big from your small town perspective.

You and numerous volunteers walk door-to-door, asking friends and neighbors to "get informed and get involved" before they vote. You hope that you can get to everyone before it's too late.

On June 8, you have to save your town - from slick Big Oil promises and from the misuse of the Initiative process.

Ted Rhodes is a community activist in Carpinteria, California who helped spearhead the successful public effort a dozen years ago to save the Carpinteria Bluffs. He currently is co-chair of Citizens Committee Against Paredon Initiative (CitizensAgainstParedon.org) - the "No on Measure J"committee.

Source: Huffington Post