Saving the West

Three out of four Americans live in the nation's seaboard regions. By the end of the century, millions more will be drawn to the coastline, especially to the relatively unspoiled Pacific littoral. From San Diego's golden beaches to Bellingham's chilly inlets, home builders and industries want shoreline property. Can the coastline survive the pressures of pollution and development? TIME Correspondent Sandra Burton toured California, Washington and Oregon to find the answer. Her report:

One hears few poetic descriptions of the Pacific's grandeur these days--only dry statistics: permissible concentrations of pesticides, inventories of recoverable resources, projections for master plans. It all seems a bit dull. But the results are startling: Westerners are standing up against the offshore drilling rig, the dredge and the bulldozer.

The most visible sign of progress is the proliferation of new sewage-treatment plants, each branded with blue-and-white "clean water" emblems, that dot the shore line. To build them takes money, and it has been forthcoming. San Diego alone has spent $51 million since 1960 to scrub its wastes. Moreover, the sludge does not end up in the ocean but goes back to the land, fertilizing flower beds and lush recreational facilities. Yet even this model scheme is not enough to satisfy the new fervor for clean water. California's water resources control board has adopted a plan so tough that San Diego will require another $21 million worth of additional treatment plants.

Perhaps more important is a gradual change in what citizens seem to want. At Newport Beach, Calif., for example, Engineer Frank Robinson and his wife Frances have battled for nine years to preserve Upper Newport Bay, an estuarine refuge for fish and birds. "As long as the growth syndrome was dominant, the only value for water was how many people you could pack in, on and around it," says Robinson. "Now people are starting to question why we need more people and more boats."

In Los Angeles, on the other hand, shame is the remedial motive, and not because the city's harbor has been aptly described as an "open cesspool." Rather, the local water-quality-control board's sole public member, Ellen Stern Harris, pointedly began inviting taxpayers and television reporters to board meetings. Under this public scrutiny, the embarrassed board immediately toughened its antipollution policies, putting potential polluters on tight cleanup schedules. As a result, says Cecil Muchmore of the harbor pollution patrol, "the fish are coming back."

Environmentally progressive Oregon seems on the verge of solving one of its biggest coastal-pollution problems. Governor Tom McCall recently restricted the number of logs that could be stored on waters around timber-processing and pulp plants. The new policy is designed to reduce the bark and debris that, as they decompose, consume precious oxygen and thereby choke marine life. Says McCall's environmental chief, L.B. Day: "We think we can start harvesting oysters in Coos Bay in a couple of years."

Though Washington has its success story--the cleanup of Seattle harbor with $145 million worth of sewage-treatment plants--Puget Sound is still being polluted by discharges from pulp and paper mills. Indeed, the mills have been granted up to eleven years to comply with federal and state water-quality laws, mainly to avoid straining the state's already depressed economy.

Stopping shoddy, ill-planned coastal development is a harder problem. Indeed, says California Water Engineer Dennis O'Leary: "We have conservationists here who want us to let water pollution fester a while to discourage development of the shore front."

Rather than go to that extreme, the states are trying to draw up new land-use policies. Except in Oregon, which already has a coastal-conservation agency, the people will have their say this November at the ballot box. In California, voters will consider Proposition 20, an initiative to establish statewide rules governing all coastal-land uses. If passed, the initiative directs one state and six regional planning commissions to supplant the chaos of some 200 local agencies that now watch over shoreline development. In Washington, the voters will decide whether they should give controls to the state ecology board or allow local governments to regulate development. Governor Dan Evans seems to capture the mood of the West when he says, "Many of Washington's residents have seen in other states what can happen if development is not controlled. We're ready to stride forward toward some of the environmental measures we need."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.