To the editor: As a 50-year resident of Santa Barbara, I do know the oil points from all sides (“Californians rallied to save the coast 50 years ago. Trump is spoiling the celebration,” July 11). I do know it because the low-income mom of a 2-year-old I couldn’t take to the seashore after the 1969 spill, as a lawyer representing environmental teams towards oil tankering within the early Nineties and as a coastal commissioner — reporting at my final assembly in 2015 proper after the Refugio oil spill.
The easy reality is that the Coastal Act permits oil growth, if carried out underneath strict environmental and security controls that profit the pure surroundings, our well being and our tourism and fishing industries. Sable and President Trump need out of these controls. If that pipeline had been secure (which it isn’t, 10 years after the spill), the oil can be on its merry option to refineries to pollute the air surrounding them.
The California Coastal Fee has performed the proper factor on each oil and desalination. Trump hates the fee for 2 causes: much less earnings for him and his “pals,” together with Elon Musk and his loud rockets, and, much more possible, as a result of residents fought him on elevating his personal flagpole over Rancho Palos Verdes. It isn’t the job of the folks of California to compensate for Trump’s losses.
Jana Zimmer, Santa Barbara
This author served on the California Coastal Fee from 2011-2015 and is the writer of “Navigating the California Coastal Act.”
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To the editor: Columnist Steve Lopez has it proper. The Coastal Act has protected over-development of the shoreline. Though I’ve solely lived in Southern California since 2010, I do know it’s a delight to journey our coast and see the ocean, the mountains and the hills.
Having lived in Miami-Dade County in Florida from 1945 to 2010, I can attest that nearly the whole thing of the coast there, with minor exceptions, is developed with high-rise inns, flats and condominiums that block the view of the ocean from the A1A highway. Moreover, the event of those buildings has resulted within the erosion of a lot of the seashore, a lot in order that what at one time might need been known as “beach-front” is a misnomer. The ocean laps proper as much as the buildings, so no seashore. Be glad about the Coastal Act.
Maurice M. Garcia, Newbury Park
