Leon Panetta takes up new cause
MONTEREY >> Citing the success of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, former Central Coast Rep. and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is calling for support of a new sanctuary in partnership with a Native American tribal community along the California coast.
Part of the impetus for Panetta’s support of a new sanctuary was prompted by an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 barrels of crude oil that washed ashore off the coast of Huntington Beach over the course of 10 days beginning Oct. 2. The spill killed some 3,500 seabirds, as well as marine animals such as dolphins and sea lions.
Panetta, who was instrumental in establishing the Monterey Bay sanctuary in 1992, wrote in a Los Angeles Times op-ed Friday morning that the threats to the California coast are getting worse through the combination of climate change and efforts to open up coastal waters to oil and gas exploration.
“It was with a sense of deja vu that I watched the Trump administration issue an oil and gas leasing plan that proposed opening 90% of federal waters nationwide for 47 new lease sales, including six off California,” Panetta wrote Friday morning in the oped. “Growing up along the shores of Monterey Bay inspired my lifelong commitment to promoting responsible stewardship of our oceans.”
Panetta argues that the ocean has too often been taken for granted, assuming an unending capacity to absorb waste products, from plastics to chemicals. People and economies that depend on the ocean cannot continue to absorb these avoidable catastrophes, he wrote, citing the California coast as a source of food,
jobs and recreation that are important parts of the state economy.
“Despite federal and state efforts to protect California’s treasured coastline, the threat of new oil drilling remains all too real,” he wrote. “As the oilcovered beaches of Orange County have shown yet again, the consequences for ocean life and coastal communities are disastrous and expensive, and will be long lasting.”
Panetta’s support targets a move by the Northern Chumash Tribal Council to advance the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary, which would butt up against the southern border of the Monterey Bay sanctuary and run south to roughly the area where Gaviota State Park
meets the sea just north of Santa Barbara.
The Chumash people have historically lived in a broad swath of the California coast running from Malibu in the south to Paso Robles in the north. The new sanctuary would be the first tribal-led national marine sanctuary designation in the U.S.
“California’s ocean has been integral to its culture and people since long before statehood. Coastal and inland Native American tribes depended on and cared for the ocean for thousands of years,” Panetta wrote.
Panetta knows a thing or two about establishing marine sanctuaries, He was instrumental in establishing the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. But it wasn’t easy. It took years of community protests and intense congressional intervention to prevent Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush
from opening the California coast to oil development.
It wasn’t until after the Exxon Valdez oil tanker dumped nearly 11 million gallons of crude oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound in 1989 that Bush announced his support for creating the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, Panetta said.
Led by the late Northern Chumash Council Chairman Fred Collins, community members in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties have fought a multiyear campaign to create the sanctuary. Collins died on Oct. 1.
“But his dream does not die with him, and the proposed Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary deserves President Biden’s support and prompt action,” Panetta wrote.
More information about the proposed sanctuary is available at https://chumashsanctuary.org/about.