Title: 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill changed oil and gas exploration forever - Los Angeles Times
Headings: The 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill that changed oil and gas exploration forever
The 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill that changed oil and gas exploration forever
Christine Mai-Duc
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Content: A federal moratorium has effectively banned new offshore drilling in the federal waters off California for decades. Today, there are 23 offshore oil and gas leases in state waters, according to the commission. Advertisement
New federal policies established after the disaster required offshore oil platform operators to pay unlimited amounts toward oil spill cleanup costs, along with penalties of up to $35 million. In the aftermath of the spill, President Richard Nixon signed the National Environmental Policy Act in 1969, which requires environmental impact reports, and the California Environmental Quality Act was adopted the next year, says Peter Alagona, an associate professor of environmental studies at UC Santa Barbara. The nation’s first Earth Day, spearheaded by burgeoning grassroots environmental groups, was celebrated in 1970. Laws regulating air and water pollution soon followed, as did legislation protecting sensitive coastal areas and endangered species. Advertisement
“What these laws really did was create an entire new framework for environmental regulation,” one that focused on protecting resources such as air and water, as well as wildlife, rather than on land conservation, Alagona says. Much of the quick action following the 1969 spill can be attributed to the “optics” of the disaster, he says. “What the oil spill did was show a very compelling picture of why we need these protections,” says Kathryn Phillips, director of Sierra Club California. Phillips, who was 13 and living in San Diego at the time of the spill, says she remembers vividly the images of “oiled birds and a vast sea of oil,” and she recalls being very sad about it.