CoastWatcher

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Coastal Advocates.
Posted on Sun, Oct. 22, 2006

Celebrities protest natural gas facility proposed for Malibu

NOAKI SCHWARTZ
Associated Press
MALIBU, Calif. – Former James Bond actor Pierce Brosnan and other celebrity residents gathered at Surfrider Beach Sunday to protest a natural gas facility proposed for a site 14 miles off the coast.

“We have to use our voices and ban together and stop this,” said Oscar winner Halle Berry.

The gathering – also attended by Cindy Crawford, Jane Seymour, Dick Van Dyke and Tea Leoni – was intended to raise awareness about how the energy industry has invested billions to liquefy and ship natural gas across oceans.

There are five facilities proposed for California, with three along the Southern California coastline. One of the world’s largest energy companies, Australian-based BHP Billiton, is seeking to build the terminal off the coast of Malibu and Oxnard. A decision is expected next year.

BHP officials say the terminals would provide a reliable source of low-polluting energy. Opponents, however, say the terminals fail to meet clean air requirements and would be terrorist targets.

“We invented smog,” said actor Ted Danson. “For us to be increasing that is insane.”

Brosnan, who hosted the protest, said his opposition to the terminals extends beyond the beach in his backyard. He plans to oppose other proposed terminals, including one in Long Beach and one in Port Hueneme.

“I would certainly put our best efforts into that as well,” said Brosnan. “I think this is for the whole California coastline.”

Mark Massara, a lawyer and director of the Sierra Club’s California Coastal Program, said the recent celebrity interest in the terminals has helped their cause tremendously.

“This is the greatest thing that has happened to our effort,” he said. “We have struggled over the last three years.”

Following a pancake breakfast, dozens of surfers, including actress Daryl Hannah on her pink board, paddled out to a sign bobbing in the water. The message to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has the power to veto the proposal, had a picture of the proposed terminal with a red line through it and two words: “Terminate it!”

By Catherine Elsworth in San Clemente, California
(Filed: 15/10/2006)
The Telegraph

Ever since the Beach Boys dedicated a song to its pleasures in 1963, Trestles beach in California has been one of the most popular surf spots on America’s West Coast.

Now, however, the legendary wave immortalised in Surfin’ USA is on a collision course with another great Californian rite of passage – the joy of riding the open highway.

In a dispute that has pitted California’s beach culture against its car culture, surfers are rallying to stop the building of a new road which they claim will alter the unique natural conditions that create Trestles’s super-consistent waves. A freeway built in the 1960s already runs close to the coast, but campaigners say that the new route, half a mile from the shore, will significantly alter the river valley that supplies vital sediment that helps to create the waves on the cobblestone reef.

They also fear that an accompanying housing development will threaten wildlife, jeopardise Trestles’s famously clean water and turn the coastal wilderness into suburban sprawl.

“For me, this place is totally magic,” said Leo Hetzel, 65, a veteran surfer, staring out at the unfurling waves as he prepared for his regular morning surf.

“It’s like California used to be, one of the few remaining creeks that doesn’t drain from suburbia. It’s good for your mental health to go out there, look back at the cliffs, the wildlife.

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“They say the toll road won’t affect anything, but once they open up this land it’s never going to be the same.”

Stickers proclaiming “Save Trestles: Stop the Toll Road” adorn the rubbish bins that dot the rugged half-mile trail that leads to the beach, which lies between Los Angeles and San Diego and is accessible only on foot.

A coalition of surfing groups, environmental organisations and local businesses, as well as the state’s attorney-general, oppose the road, which is designed to relieve traffic congestion in the rapidly developing area of southern Orange County.

The proposed Foothill tollway would hug the existing Interstate 5 freeway before heading inland, running alongside the San Mateo Creek, the coastal watershed that leads to the Trestles surf breaks.

Transportation Corridor Agencies, the road’s developers, argue that construction will be “environmentally sensitive”, preserve the natural habitat and result in cleaner “run-off” water flowing to the sea.

But opponents say past experience tells them that will not be the case. While the proposed construction will not intrude into the sea or creek, they say it could still affect the topography of the coast in a way that would change the wave-forming conditions.

“There’s not a road in existence that’s helped water quality or been good for the environment,” said Matt McCain, the spokesman for the Surfrider Foundation, based in San Clemente, which overlooks Trestles. “The whole feel and the vibe of the place will be compromised.”

The driftwood-speckled stretch of pale sand, named after the ocean-front railway tracks that surfers must cross to reach it, was for decades a secret surf destination frequented only by a fearless hard core.

The beach is reached via military land, now leased as a state park, so surfers used to play elaborate cat and mouse games with armed troops from the Camp Pendleton Marine Base to reach the shore.

Access was even harder when President Richard Nixon, who had a San Clemente holiday home – dubbed the “western White House” – was in town. But the Republican leader and Commander-in-Chief became an honorary member of a local surf club and, after learning of the tensions between surfers and the military, intervened, ordering the land be turned over for use as a state park.

“There are better waves around the world, but not ones that are so much fun,” said Mr Hetzel, who first surfed Trestles as a teenager in 1958. “It’s a forgiving wave. You really can do a lot of manoeuvres.

“I’ve got friends who’ve been surfing here for 50 years. One had his ashes scattered at Trestles. That’s how important it is to people.”

Lisa Telles, a spokesman for the developers, said that the proposals would result in the least possible damage and many measures would actually benefit the environment.

Of the claims that the surf would be affected, she said: “It’s just not true. We had a hydrology analysis done and it is not going to stop the flow of the creek that goes out to the surf.”

The 16-mile road must still win the approval of several regulatory bodies, a process expected to take years. Opponents plan to fight it every step of the way.

A Federal Judge has found what activists have long known: San Diego’s once heralded Habitat Conservation Plans, which were designed to allow massive new construction and development projects while assuring longterm protection of endangered species and habitat, have resulted in the development going forward and the species going extinct.

During the 1997’s when the plan was represented by builders to be a great way to assure development and species protection, Bruce Babbitt, then secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior, said, “This is a momentous occasion, the first time this has ever been done and a national model.”