The Fort Bragg City Council Says No to Offshore Drilling and Mining

The Fort Bragg City Council reaffirmed its opposition to offshore oil and gas drilling on Sept. 14 and broadened it — voting to send federal regulators and the state attorney general a letter that now also opposes undersea mining, paired with the city's decades-old ban on oil development at the former mill site.

The council voted 4-0 — Council Member Lindy Peters absent — to send a packet to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Attorney General Rob Bonta's office that includes the letter, a 2018 council resolution opposing offshore drilling, digitized community petitions, and the city's 1996 Measure C ordinance.

Peters, attending remotely by a pre-recorded video from Hawaii, introduced the item by recalling the 1988 fight over Lease 91, when, he said, "the federal government sent the Mineral Mining Committee to talk about opening up Lease 91 off our north coast for offshore oil exploration." He recalled packed meetings at Eagles Hall where the community united against the proposal. "Whether you were an environmentalist, whether you were a logger, whether you were a fisherman or a fisherwoman, whether you were involved with the tourist industry, whether you were selling real estate, it didn't matter," he said. "It was going to adversely affect the economy in each and every part of our lives here on the North Coast."

In contrast, he pointed to the city's emerging "blue economy" as the area's future, and called out the Noyo Center for Marine Science, solar panels at the wastewater treatment plant that he said have reduced PG&E bills "astronomically," and an experimental wave-powered desalination buoy.

Mary Rose Kaczorowski, a candidate for Fort Bragg City Council, described herself as the second generation of residents to fight to protect the ocean. "It breaks my heart that we have to do this again," she said, noting that Measure C, passed in 1996, "was specifically written to deny the drilling and infrastructure for oil and gas development" on the mill site. Kaczorowski asked the council to add mineral mining to the language.

Peter McNamee presented petitions he said had drawn near-universal support across the political spectrum. Donne Brownsey, the former chair of the California Coastal Commission, warned that the Trump administration's Interior Department is moving to limit California's input under the federal Coastal Zone Management Act. Resident Peggy Ray announced a "Hands Across the Sand" rally at Big River Beach on Sept. 26. Similar rallies are planned on both the east and west coasts of the United States.

Council Member Tess Albin-Smith then moved to add "undersea mining," and the council amended the letter to oppose "offshore oil and gas drilling, fracking, undersea mining, and other well stimulation in federal and state waters off the coast of California."