Melissa Evans, News-Press Staff Writer
January 5, 2007
Shortly after a massive oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara in 1969, an oil industry executive declared that he couldn't understand the uproar over "the loss of a few birds."
Local residents had a different view. Their efforts in the wake of one of the nation's worst environmental disasters spurred new legislation, new awareness and a new movement dedicated to the protection of natural resources.
Nearly 38 years later, the Jan. 12 disaster is the subject of a new documentary, "Sand, Sun, Oil & Gas," which features the local politicians and activists who fought against big oil companies, and continue to fight for the protection of California's coastline.
"Everyone who loves the coast needs to remember what happened and how long it took to clean it up," said Janet Bridgers, founder of Ventura-based Earth Alert and the writer and editor of the 28-minute documentary.
The film will premiere next week at free public viewings in Santa Barbara, Oxnard and Los Angeles.
The material is based on interviews and a book by former Santa Barbara News-Press reporter Bob Sollen, who was first to report on the story after receiving an anonymous call from someone who reported that the "ocean was boiling."
Scores of residents and politicians, including former Coastal Commissioner Naomi Schwartz and Assemblyman Pedro Nava -- both of whom are featured in the documentary -- went to look for themselves.
"What we found was shocking," Ms. Schwartz, also a former Santa Barbara County supervisor, says in the film.
The ocean was black. Boats in the harbor were bobbing in thick sludge. Thousands of shore birds and other marine animals were saturated with oil and left for dead on the beach.
The events that followed led to new legislation, including the Environmental Protection Act, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act and the California Coastal Act. It also inspired the first annual Earth Day in 1970, and a new generation of activism starting with the inception of the Environmental Defense Center in Santa Barbara.
Work on the film began two years ago to honor "Heroes of the Coast," a project to record the oral histories of the state's coastal activists, Ms. Bridgers said. The project was funded with a grant from the California Council for the Humanities as part of its California Stories initiative, with contributions from the Los Padres chapter of the Sierra Club, and the Ormond Beach Observers.
"Sand, Sun, Oil & Gas" will be shown at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Santa Barbara Public Library, 40 E. Anapamu St.; at 6 p.m. Wednesday at the Oxnard Public Library, 251 S. A St.; and at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Eco Village, 3551 Whitehouse Place, Los Angeles. Each presentation will be followed by a discussion of coastal protection efforts and their relevance for local, state and global communities.
For more information, visit www.earthalert.org.
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