[Originally published July 18, 2018] An uproar over proposed offshore oil drilling in June of 1989 drew hundreds of people to Humboldt State University’s Van Duzer Theatre to discuss the future of both the Humboldt and Mendocino coastlines.In the June 28, 1989 article “Oil hearings underway at HSU” by Marie Gravelle, a panel of geologists held public hearings at the campus. Their intent was to deliver a “sentiment (…) that was predominantly anti-oil.” According to Jeffrey Lahr, a then-representative of the Humboldt County Planning Department, the phones rang nonstop for more than a week and nearly 100 people signed up to make comment during the hearings.The reason for the uproar: federal Lease Sale 91, President George H.W. Bush’s proposal to examine the California coast and its potential to be drilled for oil. Like the majority of California in ‘89, the North Coast was resilient in not letting the feds push them around.According to the article, other legislation was in the works to make the coastal waters of Humboldt and Mendocino counties permanently off limits to oil drilling. Congressman Doug Bosco (D-Occidental) said they were making “tremendous strides to (convince) Congress of the necessity to protect the California Coast,” and further stated that he hoped the previous moratorium on funding lease sale operations would “send a clear message to the Bush administration and its drilling task force.” That message being that Congress was already convinced of the environmental hazards of drilling off the North Coast.In a follow-up article on June 29, 1989, “Don’t drill, North Coast pleads” by Mark Rathjen, “speaker after speaker … told task force members that the risks of offshore oil drilling to the environment and local economy were not worth the benefits.”Rathjen also noted that many of the speakers at the gathering of 700 attendees alluded to the then-recent oil spill off the Alaskan coast, caused when the Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker bound for Long Beach, ran aground on Prince William Sound’s Bligh Reef on March 24, 1989. Karin Luban spoke out against oil drilling and warned others that it brought nothing but destruction.“The government cannot turn its eyes away from these disasters anymore,” Luban said. “Don’t let the desecration happen here.”Keep Reading
