La Jolla would “take the brunt” of the drilling, with visible rigs, spills and more disrupting local economy and lifestyles, Wildcoast said.
Offshore drilling could be coming to La Jolla, unless a coalition of local government leaders and activists has anything to say about it.
Oil rigs would be seen from the La Jolla coastline under a 2025 Trump administration proposal to place rigs along California’s coast beginning as early as this year; the rigs are illustrated in a lajolla.ca rendering above as well as in a new Wildcoast and Sierra Club San Diego billboard in Clairemont.
Image courtesy of Wildcoast
The Southern California oil rig leases would be about three miles off La Jolla’s coast, Wildcoast Executive Director Serge Dedina told lajolla.ca. “If there was an oil spill, La Jolla would take the brunt.”
La Jolla’s ocean is “ground zero” for wildlife, he added. “La Jolla is such a jewel, such a model of ocean conservation and coastal conservation. We can’t afford to turn back the clock and destroy what we’ve saved.”
Further, La Jolla’s “vibrant and healthy coastal economy” is at risk, Dedina said. “People’s livelihoods and people’s lifestyles depend on a healthy ocean.”
According to Wildcoast, $15 billion or more of California’s coastal economy is at risk annually from offshore oil spill impacts; $1.3 to $3.9 billion of that is in beach visitation and coastal recreation losses alone due to beach closures and contamination.
Image courtesy of Wildcoast
Wildcoast has launched a multi-pronged campaign “to address the threat of offshore oil drilling” with the Sierra Club San Diego chapter and state and local legislators “committed to protecting our coast and ocean,” Dedina said at an April 24 press conference under the new billboard at 4290 Clairemont Mesa Blvd.
San Diego’s ocean “is the most important wildlife corridor in the entire world,” he said, a “blue highway” for whale migration and more.
More importantly, he said, “San Diego and Southern California’s $15 billion-plus coastal economy depends on clean ocean and clean beaches, and we cannot afford to have oil drilling off our coastline.”
“There is 100% chance there will be an oil spill if the Trump administration moves forward with its plan to fast track oil drilling off our coast,” Dedina emphasized.
Image courtesy of Wildcoast
“The ocean is a fragile environment,” said Russell Moore, an avid waterman and owner of boating company Xplore Offshore. “We have to fight for the coastline. … Everyone in California has to get behind this and get angry.”
“The seafood, the kelp forests and the underwater canyons, the marine reserves of La Jolla, … this is the birthplace of everything that happens in the ocean,” Moore said.
“Our natural environment, beaches [and] waters are irrevocably intertwined with the soul of our region,” said San Diego City Council President Joe LaCava, whose District 1 includes La Jolla.
An oil spill would damage the tourism and maritime industries and negatively affect military readiness, he said.
Image courtesy of PBS
“This is not a future San Diego wants,” LaCava said.
Offshore drilling would be “a death blow to our endangered wildlife,” said Lisa Ross of the Sierra Club. “This is unacceptable.”
“Our coastline is not a commodity to sell to the highest bidder,” said Matthew Tillyer, policy advisor for San Diego County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer.
“Stopping offshore oil drilling requires our entire community to come together and raise one voice … to say no to the Trump administration,” Tillyer said.
Image courtesy of Wildcoast
Noting that the annual celebration of Earth Day on April 22 originated in 1970 after the 1969 oil spill off Santa Barbara, state senator Catherine Blakespear, whose District 38 includes La Jolla, said “there is no reason for us to jeopardize California’s entire coast to double down on dirty fossil fuel production.”
Offshore drilling would not benefit California and would not lower gasoline prices anywhere, said US Rep Mike Levin, whose 49th Congressional District includes northern San Diego County to the border of Del Mar with La Jolla.
From left, Sierra Club San Diego chapter director Mark West, California senator Catherine Blakespear, San Diego City Council President Joe LaCava, Wildcoast Executive Director Serge Dedina, Siera Club executive committee chair Lisa Ross and Congressman Mike Levin gather under a new billboard opposing offshore drilling/Image courtesy of Wildcoast
“We are saying in one collective voice, ‘Stay the hell away from California’s coast,’” Levin said.
