Beach town forced to scrape away oil leak -- and a chunk of its past
Tuesday, August 10, 1999
By PHUONG LE SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
AVILA BEACH, Calif. -- As the steel claw of an excavator toppled another beloved landmark, Sylvia Miksch watched from her bedroom window and recalled better days -- before a leaky petroleum pipeline tore her town apart.
"I've never seen anything like this happen before," the 85-year-old said as The Jetty, a white-tiled restaurant with blue trim, crumbled to the ground across the street. "The beach used to be jammed with kids. Now, of course, they don't come. They'll come back. But the town is going to be different."
Sylvia Miksch, 85, hurries to her door to watch the demolition of a neighboring home in Avila Beach, Calif. Storefronts and homes on the town’s beach have been demolished to clean up a massive oil spill that went undetected for decades. Dan DeLong/P-I
Miksch, who retired to this funky, laid-back community 10 years ago to enjoy quiet walks on the beach, turned up the volume on her stereo. Frank Sinatra crooned a little louder, but still failed to drown out the crunching of wood and glass outside her apartment door.
Gone from Avila Beach this summer are the college kids in bikinis and families with Frisbees who used to flock by the thousands to the quaint beach town, sheltered in a circular cove between gentle rolling hills 140 miles northwest of Los Angeles (see map) .
Cranes and dump trucks now dominate the beach, methodically turning storefronts and homes into rubble to make way for Unocal Corp.'s 18-month project to clean up a massive oil spill beneath the town that had long gone undetected.
For decades, Avila Beach served as a sponge, soaking up about 400,000 gallons of crude oil, gasoline and diesel that slowly leaked through a network of underground pipelines that ran from a bluff overlooking the town, along the beachfront and to Unocal's pier a mile to the west.
"This is the most devastating thing that could happen to a community," said Roger Mackenzie, 48, an 18-year resident who will move to a hotel later this month with the $2,000 relocation money Unocal granted him. "Here's a town that's getting ripped up. People's lives are totally destroyed."
For almost 90 years, until 1996, Union Oil Co. pumped up to 2 million gallons of crude oil and petroleum products per year along the two-mile stretch of pipeline.
In 1989, a local business preparing to develop property tested the soil and found it was contaminated. Nine years later, Unocal entered an $18 million agreement to clean up the spill.
Construction crews and heavy equipment swarm Avila Beach, removing contaminated soil and replacing it with clean sand. Dan DeLong/P-I
In a decision that still evokes much heartache, San Luis Obispo County and the Regional Water Quality Control Board voted to dig up the contaminated soil and rebuild the town's beachfront from scratch. Unocal did not want to excavate, preferring alternative methods such as using oil-eating microorganisms to clean the contaminated soil.
But after a furious debate that divided neighbors, workers last fall began to demolish the entire beachfront. After the buildings are razed, excavators will remove enough contaminated soil to pile a football field 60 feet high.
Little is left of the town's commercial hub except deep, gaping holes and mounds of sand and dirt piled 20 feet high. A thin sheen of oil rises from the sand that once welcomed generations of sunbathers and family picnickers.
Someone has crossed out the town's business district sign with black paint. Homes still dot the hills that slope down to the beach. There, steel pilings jut from the sand to form a metal fortress.
Several miles southeast of Avila Beach, Unocal is cleaning up another mammoth oil spill at its Guadalupe Oil Field.
About 3,000 acres of highly sensitive dunes reach out to endless Pacific surf. Steep and low valleys intersect delicate marshes and wetlands filled with numerous endangered species.
A worker is dwarfed by walls of metal pilings surrounding a construction site on Avila Beach where contaminated sand will be replaced. The cleanup by Unocal will cost $18 million and is expected to take 18 months. Dan DeLong/P-I
The bucolic scenery belies a potential ecological disaster simmering beneath the surface. Unocal's 173 miles of corroded pipeline leaked about 9 million gallons of a refined petroleum product used to thin crude oil that went undetected from the 1950s until 1990.
Last year, Unocal agreed to pay $43.8 million for contaminating the ocean, beaches, river and ground water at its oil field. It is believed to be the largest environmental penalty in the state's history.
Now red flags jut from the ground, marking spots where threatened species such as the California red-legged frogs and white thistles live.
"We screwed up," said Gonzalo Garcia, Unocal's Guadalupe cleanup manager. "We had a huge problem over a long period of time. But we're absolutely committed to restoring it."
There is no easy way to clean up a massive oil spill, as the complicated projects in Avila Beach and Guadalupe Oil Field have shown.
Roger Mackenzie tries to get the attention of a board member during a meeting of the San Luis Obispo County board of supervisors. “This is the most devastating thing that could happen to a community,’’ Mackenzie said of the oil leak. Dan DeLong/P-I
Dissension still prevails in Avila Beach over what did more damage: the oil spill or the excavation of one-tenth of the town and almost half of its beach.
George Bettencourt bristles at what he sees as the needless destruction of his town.
"That stuff had been under the ground for years," said the 31-year resident. "The contamination was there. The real problem was the people from the outside."
Bettencourt describes a feeding frenzy that brought Los Angeles lawyers, developers and environmentalists to town.
Unocal "is responsible but it didn't have to happen this way," said Bettencourt, who commutes between his house in Avila Beach and an apartment in San Luis Obispo where he and his wife relocated. He thinks the company has "done the best in a bad situation."
Loyalty to Unocal ebbs and flows like the tides in this beach.
"It was a paradise until Unocal ruined it," said Bobby Hayhurst, 65, who lived in Avila Beach for 25 years before his triplex was razed last fall as part of the cleanup. "It totally destroyed my life."
Members of the Pale Kai Outrigger Canoe Club wind up a day of practice on a tiny strip of Avila Beach that they’re permitted to use. The rest of the beach is closed off. Lon Michalski, president of the club, calls Avila Beach the “last old California beach town.” Dan DeLong/P-I
After being evicted from his apartment, Hayhurst moved into a motor home. He continues to park it at a turnoff one mile west of Avila Beach, where he is close enough to have a "million-dollar view" of his beloved beach yet far enough to shelter himself from the noise.
"We didn't know what it was or how big a problem it was," Hayhurst said, reflecting back to when the spill was first discovered.
Uncertain then about the town's future, Hayhurst sold his popular Lighthouse Bar and Grill, which ultimately fell victim to Unocal's wrecking ball.
"You can't cry over spilled milk," said Hayhurst, wearing an old Lighthouse T-shirt and a black Harley-Davidson cap. "I just think they (Unocal) should fulfill their part of the bargain."
Orange cones, chain-link fences and "Beach Closed" signs will keep visitors off the beach until this fall. Excavation is expected to be completed next summer.
The beach pier that once divided the college and family sides of the beach has been partially taken apart to make way for demolition.
A lone white lifeguard station remains amid the clutter of construction equipment. Two posterboard signs hanging on a chain-link fence note where "The Weenie Queen" once hawked hot dogs for $2.
The fury and heartbreak that boiled over in this town in the past year have now subsided to a wait-and-see attitude as the final stages of the cleanup project get under way.
Some historic landmarks such as the Avila Grocery will return as they were but no one knows what the town will look like. The blueprint for the town will be completed in upcoming months.
Residents worry the town will be reshaped into a collection of beachfront condominiums and boutiques more reminiscent of glitzy Malibu Beach than the Avila Beach of old.
"They're going to build it back like yuppieville," Hayhurst groans. "The whole town is going to be different."
Not everyone sees such a dismal future.
Michael Kidd, co-owner of the Inn at Avila Beach, the last open business in town, welcomes the upscale shops that will likely crop up here.
From the balcony of the inn, which offers visitors a "construction special" rate, Kidd points to the excavation site down the street, and said: "It's gone. We lost and you move on. What you see here is the future."
What Miksch saw from her bedroom window on a recent morning was the powerful claw of a yellow crane crushing The Jetty restaurant.
Neatly coiffed and wearing pearl earrings to match her necklace, Miksch sat at her work table with a view of the demolition across the street.
When the noise gets too loud later this month, she will relocate to a motel at a neighboring beach.
Until then, she spends the days decorating mirrors with shells and sand dollars and listening to "oldies" on the radio, always with an eye on the demolition.
"It has to be done, so what the heck," she said. "There's nothing I can do about it. Life brings a lot of changes."
