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fishing conflicts offshore California
Ocean & Shoreline Management 12 (1989) 233-251
Private and Public Approaches to Solving Oil/Fishing Conflicts Offshore California
Biliana Cicin-Sain a & Art Tiddens ~ "Department of Political Science and Ocean and Coastal Policy Center, b Department of History, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA
A BS TRA CT Offshore oil activity is projected to increase significantly in the south-central coast of California: from 80 000 barrels a day in the mid-1980s up to 400 000 barrels a day by 1994. Serious clashes between fishermen and oil company operators occurred during the initial stages of the oil build-up, with fishermen claiming they were experiencing 'death by a thousand cuts'--from loss of fishing gear, to loss of fishing opportunity, to resource dispersal and deterioration. This paper reviews the impacts of oil operations on the commercial fishing industry in California utilizing the results of a recent survey of commercial fishermen. Reported impacts include not only the typical area displacement effects reported in other oil~fishing conflict cases, but the unleashing of a chain of events which also affects, among others, fishermen working in other locations as well as fish processors whose supply sources and markets may be disrupted. Efforts to mitigate negative effects on the fishing industry have been made in both the private and public realms with mixed results. The conclusion suggests that in conflict cases involving publicly owned resources and pitting contestants of unequal power, private mediation should not become a replacement for, but only a supplement to, public decision -making. INTRODUCTION A m o n g various users of the oc e a n, c o m m e r c i a l fishermen are no d o u b t the most significantly affected by the d e v e l o p m e n t of offshore oil and 233
Ocean & Shoreline Management 0951-8312/89/$03.50 (~) 1989 Elsevier Science Publishers Ltd, England. Printed in Northern Ireland
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gas resources. As offshore oil operations expanded in the 1970s, particularly in the North Sea, observers predicted that commercial fishermen could be negatively impacted by offshore oil operations in a variety of ways: they could experience loss of fishing opportunity due to construction and operation of drilling rigs and production platforms; face increased navigational hazards posed by offshore oil production structures and increased traffic congestion; incur damage to fishing gear during exploratory activities and from contact with submarine debris, pipelines or spills; face increased competition for onshore facilities; incur problems in the marketability of fishery products; and face possible adverse impacts on fishery resources, spawning grounds or nursery sites stemming from oil spills, use of dispersants, chronic air pollution, dredging, dumping of drilling muds, and tanker operations. In a recent review of the literature on oil/fishing conflicts around the world, Miles and Geselbrach ~ found that the available data on instances of oil/fishing interactions suggest that the major conflicts that have occurred to date have been those between fishing operations and the oil and gas industry--most notably, loss of access to fishing grounds, gear damage from debris, removal of obsolete installations, and reduced marketability of products as a result of superficial contamination by spills. Conflicts vis-?~-vis marine resources and the environment, the authors report, are of narrower scope and do not appear to be long-lasting. 2 With regard to methods of conflict resolution, these authors point out that the major approaches utilized appear to be facilitating communication between the affected groups (including mediation), planning and regulation vis-a-vis patterns of use, the setting of standards and environmental regulation, and compensation. Compensation, 'the least resolved of all problems between the two industries' in the North Sea, according to Miles and Gesselbrach ~ is often not used where loss of access to fishing grounds is concerned, partly because it is difficult to translate loss of territory into loss in catch and to quantify these losses in monetary terms. On the other hand, in other cases, such as in Japan, compensation has been provided in advance to the fishing industry for possible damage to fishing gear.m In the United States, the major instances of oil/fishing conflicts have taken place in the Northwest Atlantic, in Alaska, and in California. In the Northwest Atlantic, fishing organizations and environmental groups have been largely successful in delaying the development of potential oil reserves in Georges Bank--an area notable for its fishery resources. 3,4 In Alaska, where the economic and social importance of fishery resources rivals the value of offshore oil and gas, fishing
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organizations have been effective in delaying oil lease sales, in getting specific fish-rich tracts deleted from the lease sales, in getting protective regulations enacted, and in concluding agreements on the conduct of exploratory seismic operations through negotiations with the oil industry. 5,6 In California, intense oil/fishing conflicts have been taking place in recent years in both the south-central and northern parts of the state. In south-central California, discoveries of oil reserves made in the early 1980s on existing leases have dramatically increased the scope of oil development, incurring in the process considerable conflicts with the fishing industry. In Northern California, where leasing of offshore waters has been proposed by the federal government, fishing communities have mobilized politically to prevent, at least for the time being, the leasing and the immediate development of offshore oil reserves. The purpose of this article is to explore the nature of the oil/fishing conflicts offshore California in the 1980s, particularly in the southcentral coast of California where significant oil development is now taking place. First the context of oil development offshore California is reviewed, and the impacts of oil operations on commercial fishermen are analyzed, utilizing the results of a recent survey study. Second, both private and public efforts to mitigate negative impacts are analyzed. In conclusion, a set of observations on the outcomes of this controversy and its implications for other cases of oil/fishing conflicts around the world are presented.
OIL/FISHING CONFLICTS IN C A L I F O R N I A Oil development and fishing have coexisted in the south-central coast of California for a long time--albeit not always peacefully. Offshore oil development in the United States first made its appearance in the Santa Barbara area in 1896 (see Fig. 1). Offshore operations remained confined to the shoreline and nearshore waters until the late 1950s when advances in offshore technology allowed for development in deeper waters. 7 Heightened exploration and development in the 1960s was brought to an abrupt halt in 1969 when the Santa Barbara oil spill occurredS----an event which proved catalytic in the rise of national, as well as of international environmental awareness. After a lull in development during the early 1970s in the aftermath of the oil spill, oil activity intensified in the late 1970s and in the 1980s. 7 Major oil finds were made in the early 1980s: current estimates place
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see ~set
L-~os Angeles
_.~
Fig. 1. South-Central coast of California.
the reserves in the Santa Barbara Channel and the Santa Maria Basin (see Fig. 1) at close to 2 billion barrels of crude oil. These reserves represent one of the largest discoveries in the US since Prudhoe Bay in Alaska in 1968 and one of the world's major oil provinces. 9 Offshore oil production in the area is expected to rise dramatically from a level of 80 000 barrels a day in 1984 to up to 400 000 barrels a day in 1994. l0 Oil/fishing conflicts began in the late 1950s as oil operations moved into deeper waters. Fishermen complained mainly about conflicts with seismic exploratory activity (which in those days used dynamite to produce acoustic signals, killing many fish in the process); about damage as a result of oil-related debris; and about the a b a n d o n m e n t of obsolete structures once the oil had been removed. 1~
TABLE 1 Summary of Major Impacts from Offshore Oil Development and Attendant Consequences Identified by Commercial Fishing Community in Santa Barbara Region, 1987
Major impacts
Attendant consequences
1. Preclusion from fishing grounds (caused by seismic interference, platforms and pipelines, presence of debris, ongoing oilfield construction activity)
If fishermen have to move from an area (no matter what the cause), possible consequences are: 1. Fishermen generally have to travel further and incur more travel time, costs, and personal hardship. 2. If gear is lost or damaged in a new territory, fishermen spend more down time repairing or replacing equipment 3. Fishermen fishing in non-oil areas face increased competition from fishermen displaced by oil activity 4. Fish catch decreases 5. There is less fish (and/or different species) for processors to process 6. Processors may need to travel further to unload the product, incurring higher costs 7. Loss of markets occur, as supply is disrupted or changed 8. Secondary or support industries may experience financial loss
2. Increased vessel traffic
1. Congestion at sea increases -----concerns with small boat safety ----conflicts with equipment 2. Competition for harbor space increases ----difficulties in unloading fish may also mean fewer fish for processors
3. Possible impacts on resources
1. Concern with the possible effects of seismic activity on eggs and larvae and on fish dispersal 2. Concern about the effects of drill muds and produced water on fishery resources and marine habitat 3. Concern with other adverse impacts on marine environments (e.g., potential for oil spills) 4. Ultimately, possible decline in fish populations
4. Gear loss/damage
1. Fishermen spend down-time repairing damage gear; replacement costs
5. Other impacts (payments by oil companies to some fishermen for moving gear or for not fishing)
1. Division of fishing community
Source: Adapted from Ref. 12.
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It was in the early 1980s that conflict between the two industries reached a peak in the Santa Barbara area. Spokesmen for the commercial fishing industry report being impacted by oil development in a wide variety of ways. Table 1 summarizes the impacts reported in a study which, in 1987, surveyed commercial fishermen and representatives of the major fishing organizations and of the major fish processing companies in the Santa Barbara Channel/Santa Maria Basin area. 12,13 TABLE 2
Nature of Personal and Fishing Community Impacts Resulting from Oil Development as Identified by Commercial Fishermen (1987 Mail Survey of Santa Barbara Commercial Fishermen) 1 Personal impact
2 General impact on fish industry
3 No impact
4 Don't know
Interference from support vessels and equipment
69% (38)
38% (21)
11% (6)
7% (4)
Discharge of drilling muds and fluids
57% (32)
46% (26)
5% (3)
11% (6)
Forced off fishing grounds
55% (31)
54% (30)
11% (6)
10% (6)
Increased costs and travel time to fishing grounds
51% (29)
38% (21)
11% (6)
20% (11)
Decreased fish catch
48% (27)
46% (26)
11% (6)
14% (8)
Snags from seafloor debris or anchor scars
45% (25)
54% (30)
11% (6)
13% (7)
Adverse impact on habitat
45% (25)
48% (27)
4% (2)
14% (8)
Adverse effects on fishery resources
43% (24)
46% (26)
9% (5)
18% (10)
Competition for dock/pier space
23% (13)
29% (16)
21% (12)
25% (14)
Impacts
Note: Percentages indicate the proportion of respondents who identified a particular impact, and the figures in parentheses indicate the number of respondents reporting a particular impact. Some respondents identified both a personal impact and general impact on the industry, therefore percentages do not total 100%. Source: Ref. 12, p. 10.
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Table 2 provides more detail on the impacts identified by the rank-and-file commercial fishermen in response to a close-ended question in the mail questionnaire which provided a list of possible impacts. Responses to a follow-up open-ended question on personal impacts were similar to the information obtained in the close-ended question above with two major additions: a large proportion to respondents identified interference from seismic exploration operations and gear loss as major adverse impacts. As can be seen from these data, fishing spokesmen report a variety of impacts related to fishing operations, as is the case in other fish/oil conflicts. In addition, they point to other, second- and third-order consequences. The effects of area preclusion, for example, are not only that fishermen can no longer fish in traditional grounds, but may also have to travel further to other areas, incurring more travel time, costs, and personal hardship. Fishermen in non-oil areas are, in turn, affected by the increased competition, and processors--who may need to travel further to pick up the product or whose supplies and markets may be disrupted--are negatively impacted as well.
P R I V A T E A N D PUBLIC A P P R O A C H E S TO M I T I G A T I N G T H E CONFLICT
The oil/fishing conflicts in the Santa Barbara area have been addressed both through a private negotiating effort between the two industries and through mitigation efforts by the local and state governments. These efforts are described in turn. Private mediation
As the oil activity intensified in the early 1980s, the complaints of the local fishermen focused on four major issues: lack of communication between the fishermen and the responsible oil companies and the relevant government agencies on advance planning to prevent conflicts; gear damage and other economic losses; conflicts with the seismic exploration vessels; possible long-term damage to the fishery resources; and long-term loss of fishing opportunity as the number of platforms and associated oil activity grew. There was no consensus within the fishing community as to how these problems might be solved. Some members wanted to form an alliance with environmental groups and resolve these issues in the public arena (including the courts), while
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others, not trusting environmental interests, wished to deal directly with the oil companies on an industry-to-industry basis. TM After a series of meetings between the two industries and the relevant government agencies, initiated by the area Sea Grant Marine Advisor in early 1983, the Seattle-based Mediation Institute was brought in to provide neutral mediation assistance. 15 At a tense confrontational meeting in April 1983, spokesmen from the two industries agreed to enter into private negotiations aided by the third-party mediators but excluding the press and governmental representatives.
The joint oil~fishing committee The negotiating effort found form in the Joint Oil/Fishing Committee (the Joint Committee) that initially included three representatives from each industry and operated under the following guidelines: discussions were to be kept confidential (even from each industry's constituents), any public statement from the committee had to be agreed to jointly, decisions had to be unanimous, the committee would try to meet monthly, and either side could adandon the effort at any time. 16 The mediator and the advisor would attend the meetings, but only in an advisory capacity. It was implicit in this private agreement that the fishermen would stay out of the public process (e.g. public hearings, agency meetings) as long as private negotiations were productive. ~6 Since 1983, the Joint Committee has not only survived as a mediating body (while initially funded through private foundations, the Joint Committee is now supported by the oil companies), but has also made substantial progress in negotiating, if not completely resolving, a number of the oil/fishing conflicts along California's south-central coast. In addressing the early concerns of the fishermen, the Committee first established an Oil/Fisheries Liaison Office to serve as an information clearinghouse for both industries, as a place where each industry would contact the other, where notification of seismic exploratory activity and, conversely, fishing seasons, could be disseminated, and where fishermen could get help with their loss claims to oil companies and to the federal Fishermen's Contingency Fund. The Liaison Office was managed by the Joint Committee, staffed by a marine biologist, and funded by a consortium of local oil companies, the California Coastal Operators Group (CCOG). The Joint Committee next worked on rationalizing the seismic exploration notification process and alleviating conflicts between fishing and seismic vessels, work that had been started by the Marine Advisor. The Committee also delineated and implemented, on a voluntary basis,
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241
traffic corridors for oil service support vessels, again to minimize conflicts between fishing and oil operators traffic. Both programs were run through the Liaison Office which quickly became the focal point for information and communication between the two industries. A third item concerned resource issues. The Joint Committee spawned two resource committees which included representatives of government resource management agencies---the Fish Dispersal Steering Committee and the Eggs and Larvae Committee.17 The committees undertook joint fact finding efforts on the question of possible oil activity damage to living marine resources. Regarding fish dispersal due to seismic testing, acting on the advice of government agency representatives and a panel of agreed upon scientists, the Fish Dispersal Steering Committee contracted for (what would become) a series of studies on this issue. A similar strategy was undertaken by the Eggs and Larvae Committee and the results of its work, discussed below, were released in April 1988. A final issue, and by far the most controversial, concerned compensation for the long-term loss of fishing opportunity. The Committee addressed this question by commissioning a study by an economics consulting firm to determine, through confidential interviews with the fishermen and economic modeling, the economic loss to fishermen as a result of oil development. The results of this study were to be a starting point for an adequate compensation scheme. Though the study was completed and presented to the Joint Committee, discussions on compensation broke down in late 1985. Up to that point, then, the private negotiations between the two industries had made significant progress in the achievement of timely communication between the two industries on issues of seismic testing, gear loss and traffic corridors, and initiated studies on living resource issues, but had made little progress on long-term compensation. All this took place during a very crucial period for public decisionmaking regarding oil development in the Santa Barbara region-fourteen major proposals for new offshore platforms, pipelines, and related onshore facilities were under consideration by local, state and federal authorities. Throughout all of these deliberations, the commercial fishermen tended, by and large, to stay out of the public proceedings, concentrating their efforts, instead, on the private negotiations. A review of the public record of the permitting process for two of the major proposals considered (Chevron/Texaco's Point ArgueUo project and Exxon's Santa Ynez Unit) showed limited participation by fishermen in the public proceedings. ~8 Rather, it was largely public interest groups and government agencies, not the fishermen, which
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raised fishery-related concerns at the public meetings and hearings held to consider the permitting of these oil development projects. The 1985 survey o f the mediation effort
A survey conducted by the authors in 1985 sought to explore the usefulness of these negotiation efforts as a model of conflict resolution. ~1 Eighteen personal interviews were conducted with individuals from both industries currently serving on the Joint Committee, past members of the Committee, other members of each industry not directly involved with the Committee but considered to be opinion leaders in their respective industries, and neutral advisors to the Joint Committee. z° Respondents were asked to comment on the nature and origin of the mediation effort, the 'representativeness' and progress of the Joint Committee, and on alternatives to mediation. Although many of the respondents said that initially they had been apprehensive about mediation, most thought that private mediation was a good idea, realized that there were problems to be worked out and saw that 'nothing could be done if the two groups didn't sit down and talk. '21'22 Many hoped that this new approach might provide a better and more expedient arena for conflict resolution than the courts or previous confrontational postures, z3'z4 One clear benefit of the early committee meetings was educational. Both sides had to learn each other's business, terminology, and techniques. Committee respondents felt that this helped open communication and establish understanding and trust. In general, however, non-committee representatives from both industries felt that representation on the committee could be improved. Fishermen, in particular, felt that those on the committee did not represent all of the fishing community. Moreover, although initially, informal fishermen caucuses were to be held by Joint Committee representatives to inform other fishermen of negotiatiori discussions, it appears that few such caucuses have been held. Representatives from both industries were in agreement that the 'easiest' issues, which had been addressed first, had been resolved with a great deal of success: i.e. the establishment of the Liaison Office, improvement in the notification of seismic activity, and the establishment of voluntary traffic corridors for both industries. There was less agreement on progress made on resource issues. While some praised the committee for initiating the studies on the effects of seismic activity on fish dispersal and eggs and larvae, others foresaw (correctly, as it turned out) that many years would be needed before the impacts
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243
could be fully understood. The most skepticism was expressed on the issue of long-term compensation for loss of fishing opportunity. In general, fishermen expressed a feeling of frustration with the lack of progress on this issue. Oil industry representatives, in contrast, expressed concern over the precedent-setting nature of any compensation agreements and the implications these might pose for other oil/fishing conflicts. Oil industry respondents, when asked about their overall perceptions of this type of conflict resolution, were unanimous in their praise, saying this approach was 'necessary, appropriate, and valuable'. H Their answers emphasized the importance of the process itself, its success in starting communications and in establishing a more positive relationship between the two industries. One respondent commented, 'the voluntary system works w e l l . . , if [the] government were doing it, we wouldn't have made ~ of the progress we have made'. H Others had more mixed views. Only one fisherman out of eight responded favorably saying that it was the 'best possible approach under the circumstances' adding, however, that 'fishing was still losing but at least slowing down the losing process'. Another fishermen noted that 'some good things have come out of it [the private negotiations] but mostly it's the s a m e . . . ' Five fishermen voiced serious doubts of the whole process saying such things as 'It is a delay tactic', or 'I don't think that we should have taken this route, we should have stayed in the public arena instead'. One fisherman expressed some fears that the Joint Committee was becoming too powerful, that, in fact, 'the public agencies were informally beginning to rely too much on the committee for i n f o r m a t i o n . . , the committee is now making public p o l i c y . . . ' The neutral advisors, by and large, thought that the Joint Committee's efforts had been partially successful, especially in solving many of the operational conflicts, but voiced some doubts about problems of representation.ll All respondents were well aware of the alternatives to private mediation, as these were the only means available prior to the formation of the Joint Committee. It was generally agreed that while such options as: participation in public hearings, lobbying the appropriate legislators or public agencies, or legal action through the courts remained open, the fishermen had not pursued them. One fisherman noted, however, that the 'oil companies' participation in the public process did not decrease because their representatives are paid to go; the fishermen aren't'. At least one fishing representative felt that, in hindsight, the fishermen should not have quit going to the public meetings. 1|
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Current status (mid-1988) of the private mediation efforts Since 1985, three of the four issues that brought the oil and fishing industries into mediation have progressed much as expected. The Liaison Office was functioning smoothly and communication between the two industries through that office continues smoothly. Though there were periodic problems, there were fewer conflicts between seismic and fishing vessels as a result of improvements in the notification procedure. Vessel corridors were being observed, though there were periodic outbreaks of non-compliance. Some progress had also been made on the issue of living resources. In June 1987, the Minerals Management Service (MMS) released the firsh dispersal study (the genesis of which goes back to the Joint Committee) titled, 'Effect of Sound from a Geophysical Survey Device on Fishing Success'. While the investigators (Batelle Memorial Institute) found a reduction in catch-per-unit of effort using a 'hook and line' method of fishing, they cautioned against drawing general conclusions and suggested further investigation. 25 In April 1988 the American Petroleum Institute released the results of its study on the impact of geophysical acoustic signals on the eggs and larvae of the northern anchovy (the genesis of this study can also be traced to the Joint Committee). The investigators (Tracor Applied Sciences) found that 'noticeable impacts on anchovy eggs and larvae would only result from multiple exposures in close proximity to full seismic arrays'. 26 Further studies are underway. The one issue that has still eluded the Joint Committee is that of long-term compensation for loss of fishing opportunity, since the oil industry's refusal to conclude agreement on a compensation package for the fishing industry in 1985. More recently, the Joint Committee and the Liaison Office have redirected their efforts to the public arena and have sought to obtain assistance from the State of California to mitigate the negative consequences of oil development, as is explained later in our discussion of public mitigation efforts. While they have not been willing to agree to an overall compensation package to the fishing industry, oil companies, however, have been providing payments to individual fishermen to 'assist' the oil industry in a variety of ways--such as moving fishing gear or serving as watchguards for oil equipment--activities which the more skeptical view as 'paying fishermen not to f i s h ' . 27 These side payments to individual fishermen have proven quite controversial and are, according to some of the older fishermen, tearing the fishing community apart through petty jealousies and bickering. 2s Some claim that this is a conscious 'divide and conquer' strategy on the
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part of the oil industry; as one fisherman put it, 'The oil industry has successfully divided the Santa Barbara fishing fraternity in half'. 28
Public mitigation efforts Several major types of mitigation efforts have been made by various public agencies to alleviate the negative impacts of offshore oil development on commercial fisheries. The first is specific permit conditions imposed on individual oil development projects. To cite one example, in the case of the Chevron/Texaco project, the following fishery mitigation permit conditions were imposed: ' . . . ample notice given to fishermen before commencing any construction; contribution to a Local Fisheries Contingency Fund and a Fisheries Enhancement Fund; observance of vessel traffic corridors; removal of construction mooring buoys and any other equipment lost overboard during construction; shrouding of all pipelines to prevent snagging during fish trawling operations. 29 Other major types of public mitigation measures are the two fishery funds established by Santa Barbara County as part of its permitting of onshore oil and gas facilities: the Fisheries Contigency Fund and the Fisheries Enhancement Fund. The Fisheries Contingency Fund (established in 1987) is aimed at assisting fishermen in cases of gear damage as a result of oil operations. While in federal waters (3 to 200 miles offshore), cases of gear damage are supposed to receive compensation under section IV of the federal Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act Amendments (OCSLAA), 3° the processing of claims under this provision of the OCSLAA has been notoriously poor, with fishermen often having to wait for more than a year to receive payment, s The Local Fisheries Contingency Fund was thus established to cover gear damages incurred in state waters (0 to 3 miles) which are not covered under the OCSLAA and to temporarily compensate fishermen for their gear losses while they await compensation from the Federal Fishermen's Contigency Fund. 31 The Fisheries Enhancement Fund was established by Santa Barbara County to mitigate adverse effects on commercial fishing arising from the construction and operation of offshore oil and gas facilities. Permit conditions on individual oil development projects require oil companies to pay into the Fund based on the level of impacts individual projects have on commercial fishing operations. Funds are to be used for a variety of enhancement projects not provided under permit conditions and to offset cumulative impacts which are often difficult to mitigate through project specific permit conditions. In fiscal year
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1987/88, oil companies had paid $33 992 into the Fund. This amount was expected to grow to $162 033 in 1988/89 and to remain at that level for several years. Enhancement projects approved during the first year of operation include an ice machine, a fish hoist, the setting up of a net repair area, and studies on the marketing of underutilized species.~2 A final form of compensation is expected to come from the State of California. In April 1986, the State received $338 million dollars in settlement of legal action pertaining to section 8 (g) of the O C S L A A - which concerns the disposition of oil and gas revenues generated in the 3 to 6 mile zone offshore or the first 3 miles of federal waters (this state/federal suit had been pending in the courts for a number of years with the royalties in question being placed in an escrow account). As part of the settlement, the State will receive an additional $289 million recoupment payment to be received over the next fifteen years. 3z Efforts were made in 1987 to target some of these monies for commercial fishing mitigation in the form of Assembly Bill 2605 which was to compensate fishermen with a total of approximately six million dollars in compensatory programs through 1990. The Joint Committee and Liaison Office lobbied heavily for this bill. In January 1988, the State Office of Environmental Affairs, after working closely with the Liaison Office, the Mediator, and the Joint Committee proposed that Assembly Bill 2605 be incorporated into the Governor's 1988 budget. A $2.1 million dollar Fisheries Impact Program was subsequently approved for the 1988/89 fiscal year and includes the following programs (for the entire state): assistance in the development of new fishing grounds, new gear, or new methods of fishing; procurement of additional storage and working space for staging and repair; improvement of vessel fire and personnel safety and survival equipment; removal of debris related to oil and gas development from the seafloor; and fisheries marketing assistance. The programs will be administered by four state agencies and similar budgets are planned for the following two budget years. 33 CONCLUSIONS To summarize, the commercial fishing spokesmen in the south-central coast of California report a variety of impacts resulting from offshore oil development activities. These include not only the typical area displacement effects reported in other cases, but also the unleashing of a chain of events which affects, among others, fishermen working in other locations as well as processors whose supply sources and markets may be disrupted.
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Efforts to mitigate the oil/fishing conflict have been made in both the private and public realms. With a few exceptions, the fishermen initially opted for working out an agreement with the oil companies in the private face-to-face negotiations of the Joint Committee rather than pursuing their cause in the public arena. The success of the private negotiation effort has been decidedly mixed. On the one hand, good and stable avenues of communication have been established between the two industries, and the Liaison Office serves as an important focal point which can often preclude conflict by clarifying issues and avoiding misunderstandings. However, problems exist in the operation of the Committee. Most prominent among these is the apparent lack of periodic and organized contact between the representatives of the Committee and the rank-and-file fishermen. This problem is exacerbated by the increasing importance which the Committee and Liaison Office appear to be assuming: increasingly government agencies are turning to them for a 'one-stop' easy assessment of fishermen needs and opinions rather than taking the more costly and complex route of systematically canvassing the opinions and needs of the fishing industry. In terms of specific accomplishments, under the aegis of the Joint Committee, good progress has been made in addressing problems related to seismic exploration, in establishing a voluntary traffic scheme, and in launching scientific studies to determine the effects of seismic exploration on fish behavior. On the other hand, no agreement on compensation has been reached in the private negotiations, although this was one of the major motivating forces--'carrots'--that brought--and kept--the fishermen at the negotiating table. As discussed, the only kind of mitigation measure that has been received by the fishermen has come as a result of action in the public arena, with the exception of some ad hoc payments made by the oil companies to individual fishermen. Considering that the private negotiations on compensation were taking place at the same time as major decisions about the permitting of oil facilities were going on, skeptical observers could well argue that the private negotiations were used by the oil companies as a strategy to keep the fishermen--'lured by the carrot of compensation'---occupied at the negotiating table, while reducing the amount of trouble or 'noise' which this group of ocean users could have produced in the public proceedings. Considering the kinds of mitigation measures that have been adopted by public agencies, as we discussed, a number of mitigation measures have been enacted by local and state authorities--ranging from permit conditions on specific projects, to the county-imposed fishing funds, to
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state funds for fishery facilities and other fishery development projects. The level of mitigation provided by these efforts and the total amount of funds available have been rather small, partially, we think, because fishermen were not, as a group, heavily involved in the deliberations on permitting conditions or in the establishment of the two county funds (although individual fishermen did participate in these proceedings). By and large, the impacts to the fishing industry identified in the environmental impact assessments prepared for each oil development project have tended to be underestimated. This is partially due to the fact that each environmental impact report focuses on impacts on fisheries mainly in the limited area occupied by the proposed new oil installations--thus, broader second and third-order effects are generally not considered. Moreover, fishermen have to tangibly demonstrate-through past fish tickets or other such evidence--that they had fished in a particular area over a number of years. This is often difficult for fishermen to do because their reporting of fishing locations is often distorted for competition reasons. In conclusion and considering the implications of this case for similar oil/fishing controversies elsewhere, it is unfortunate, in our view, that for a number of crucial years during which many important public decisions about oil development were being made, that private mediation was essentially used to replace the public process rather than to supplement it. 34 In conflicts which pit contestants of unequal power and resources, it would seem most advisable for the weaker parties (which the fishermen typically are) to pursue their grievances simultaneously in all available arenas, both public and private. We recognize that this may be difficult for groups such as commercial fishermen whose time and funds are quite limited. In the Santa Barbara case, however, what mitigation came to the fishermen came from public authorities. It is, after all, the governmental agencies which are stewards of the publicly owned resources of our ocean which should be most concerned with protecting the marine environment and with mitigating the negative impacts on other ocean users which arise from the exploitation of offshore oil resources.
A C K N O W L E D GEMENTS Some of the data reported in this article (interviews with participants in the private negotiations between the oil and fishing industries) were collected as part of research sponsored in part by N O A A , National Sea Grant College Program, Department of Commerce under grant No.
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NA80AA-D-00120, project No. R/MP-1-14F through the California Sea Grant College Program; this assistance is gratefully acknowledged. Thanks are also due to the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education for its sponsorship of research on oil/fishing conflicts offshore California and to the Santa Barbara County Energy Division for the use of the survey on impacts of offshore oil development on commercial fishermen conducted in 1987. Many thanks are due to the individuals whose interview responses are cited in the article for their time and thoughtful replies.
NOTES A N D R E F E R E N C E S
1. Miles, E. & Geselbracht, L., Fisheries and Conflicting Uses of the Sea. Paper prepared for the European Workshop on the Regulation of Fisheries: Legal, Economic, and Social Aspects, Tromso, Norway, June 1986, pp. 29-37. 2. It should be noted that a number of studies on which Miles and Gesselbracht base their analysis date from the late 1970s and early 1980s. Recent and extensive national and international media coverage has highlighted the 'dying of the North Sea,' as a result of pollution and of oil operations. 3. Colgan, C. S., The Search for an Ocean Management Policy: The Georges Bank Case. In The Politics of Offshore Oil, ed. J. Goldstein, Praeger, New York, 1982, pp. 29-71. 4. The fact that the first exploratory wells drilled in the area have been dry has also worked to reduce industry interest in the area. 5. Jones, G. K., Harvesting the Ocean's Resources: Oil or Fish? Southern California Law Review, 60 (1987) 587-648. 6. Hanley, P. T., (ed.) A Manual for Geophysical Operations in Fishing Areas of Alaska. Prepared by Representatives of the Oil/Fisheries Group of Alaska, 2nd Edition, May 1984, pp. 1-18. 7. Cicin-Sain, B., Offshore Oil Development in California: Challenges to Governments and to the Public interest. Public Affairs Report, 27 (1 and 2) (February-April 1986) 1-15. 8. Nash, A. E., Mann, D. E. & Olsen, P. G., Oil Pollution and the Public Interest: A Study of the Santa Barbara Oil Spill. Institute of Governmental Studies, University of California, Berkeley, CA, 1972, pp. 1-157. 9. Williams, R., Drilling Flurries in the Channel and San Pedro Bay. Oil and Gas Journal, 82 (2) (9 January 1984) 64-8. 10. Covington, T., Executive Director, California Coastal Operators Group. Personal communication, Santa Barbara, California, August 1988. 11. Cicin-Sain, B., Tiddens, A. & Doss, C., Oil/Fishing Conflicts in the South Central Coast of California. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Fisheries Society, Sun Valley, Idaho, September 1985.
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12. Kronman, M. & Cicin-Sain, B., An Assessment of the Needs of the Local Commercial Fishing Industry and a Plan to Mitigate Impacts from Increased Oil Development in the Santa Barbara Channel and Santa Maria Basin. Report prepared for the Santa Barbara County Energy Division, August 1987. pp. iv-v, 10. 13. The study was conducted by Mick Kronman and author Cicin-Sain in August 1987 on behalf of the Santa Barbara County Energy Division to ascertain the impacts of oil development on the commercial fishing industry and to assess the attendant needs of the fishing industry. The study involved: (1) a mail survey sent to the entire population of licensed commercial fishermen in Santa Barbara County (N = 702) (a response rate of about 10% was obtained); (2) personal interviews with representatives of the major fishing organizations in the area ( N = 11); (3) personal interviews with the major seafood processors in the area (N = 10); and (4) public meetings to solicit fishermen's opinions.~Z 14. Allen, R., Commercial fisherman, Santa Barbara. Personal communication, August 1985. 15. Giannini, J., Negotiation of OCS Conflicts: The Commercial Fishermen's Perspective. In Coastal Zone and Continental Shelf Conflict Resolution: Improving Ocean Use and Resource Dispute Management, ed., J. D. Nyhart, Sea Grant College Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, November 1985, MITSG 85-28, pp. 105-6. 16. Uchikura, D., Negotiation of OCS Conflicts: The Oil Industry's Perspective. In Coastal Zone and Continental Shelf Conflict Resolution: Improving Ocean Use and Resource Dispute Management, ed., J. D. Nyhart, Sea Grant College Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, November 1985, MITSG 85-28, pp. 107-10. 17. Knaster, A. S., Negotiation of OCS Conflicts: The Mediator's Perspective. In Coastal Zone and Continental Shelf Conflict Resolution: Improving Ocean Use and Resource Dispute Management, ed., J. D. Nyhart, Sea Grant College Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, November 1985, MITSG 85-28, pp. 101-3. 18. For the EXXON project, a total of five fishermen testified at the public hearings which spanned a year-and-a-half time period and two fishermen were cited as sources in the final environmental impact statement on the project. For the C H E V R O N project, four fishermen provided testimony and one fisherman was cited in the preparation of the environmental impact report (review of the record conducted by author Tiddens.) ~9 19. Tiddens, A., A Case Study of Public Decision-Making in Santa Barbara County on the Point Arguello Field and Gaviota Processing Facility Area Study and Chevron/TEXACO Development Plans EIR/EIS. Unpublished paper, Department of Political Science, University of California, Santa Barbara, July 1985. 20. The eighteen interviews included: all five oil industry members serving on the Joint Committee; one oil industry representative previously associated with the committee; two of four commercial fishermen serving on the Committee (of the remaining members, one declined to be interviewed because of lack of time and distaste of academic studies while the other
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21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30.
31. 32. 33. 34.
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was out to sea and unavailable); two other fishermen who had previously served on the committee or served in an adiunct position to the committee; six other opinion leaders in the fishing community not formally involved in the committee proceedings; three of the four advisors to the Joint Committee (with the exception of the mediator who did not want to comment on the process while the negotiations were still ongoing). We also spoke informally with several agency and interest group representatives involved in oil development deliberations. 1~ Crabbe, G., Commercial fisherman, Santa Barbara. Personal communication, 10 August, 1985. Giannini, J. C. Jr., Owner, Marine Service and Equipment, Commercial Fisherman, Morro Bay, California. Personal communication, 2 August 1985. Manning, L., Program Representative, Marine Advisory Program, Santa Barbara. Personal communication, 10 July 1985. Uchikura, D., Supervisor, Offshore District, Land Department, Western Division, Chevron USA. Personal Communication, 31 July 1985. California Sea Grant College Program, University of California, Marine Advisory Program. Oil and Gas Project Newsletter for Fishermen and Offshore Operators, 4(6) (June 1987) 2. California Sea Grant College Program, Univeristy of California, Marine Advisory Program. Oil and Gas Project Newsletter for Fishermen and Offshore Operators, 4(10) (October 1987) 2. Hauser, H., Fishermen Get Jobs Out of ARCO Protest. Santa Barbara News Press, (27 June 1987) Al, AS. Hauser, H., Fishermen Say They're Split by ARCO Hiring Their Friends. Santa Barbara News Press, (31 May 1987) A8, B1, B4. Santa Barbara County, Resource Management Department, Chevron Point Arguello Proiect" Final Permit Conditions, 1985, pp. 26-8. Title IV of the federal Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act Amendments established the Fishermen's Contingency Fund to compensate for damages to fishing gear incurred as a result of oil and gas activities on the outer continental shelf. Santa Barbara County, Resource Management Department, Local Fishermen's Contingency Fund and Fisheries Enhancement Fund, 1987, pp. 2-3. Sharpless, J., Annual Review of the Coastal Resources and Energy Assistance Program, Sacramento, California, February 1988, pp. 1-35. California Sea Grant Program, Marine Advisory Program, Oil and Gas Project Newsletter for Fishermen and Offshore Operators, 5(10) (October 1988) 1-2. A similar view is expressed in" Susskind, L. & Ozawa, C., Mediated Negotiation in the Public Sector. American Behavioral Scientist, 27(2) (November/December 1983) 255-79.
Private and Public Approaches to Solving Oil/Fishing Conflicts Offshore California
Biliana Cicin-Sain a & Art Tiddens ~ "Department of Political Science and Ocean and Coastal Policy Center, b Department of History, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA
A BS TRA CT Offshore oil activity is projected to increase significantly in the south-central coast of California: from 80 000 barrels a day in the mid-1980s up to 400 000 barrels a day by 1994. Serious clashes between fishermen and oil company operators occurred during the initial stages of the oil build-up, with fishermen claiming they were experiencing 'death by a thousand cuts'--from loss of fishing gear, to loss of fishing opportunity, to resource dispersal and deterioration. This paper reviews the impacts of oil operations on the commercial fishing industry in California utilizing the results of a recent survey of commercial fishermen. Reported impacts include not only the typical area displacement effects reported in other oil~fishing conflict cases, but the unleashing of a chain of events which also affects, among others, fishermen working in other locations as well as fish processors whose supply sources and markets may be disrupted. Efforts to mitigate negative effects on the fishing industry have been made in both the private and public realms with mixed results. The conclusion suggests that in conflict cases involving publicly owned resources and pitting contestants of unequal power, private mediation should not become a replacement for, but only a supplement to, public decision -making. INTRODUCTION A m o n g various users of the oc e a n, c o m m e r c i a l fishermen are no d o u b t the most significantly affected by the d e v e l o p m e n t of offshore oil and 233
Ocean & Shoreline Management 0951-8312/89/$03.50 (~) 1989 Elsevier Science Publishers Ltd, England. Printed in Northern Ireland
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Biliana Cicin-Sain, Art Tiddens
gas resources. As offshore oil operations expanded in the 1970s, particularly in the North Sea, observers predicted that commercial fishermen could be negatively impacted by offshore oil operations in a variety of ways: they could experience loss of fishing opportunity due to construction and operation of drilling rigs and production platforms; face increased navigational hazards posed by offshore oil production structures and increased traffic congestion; incur damage to fishing gear during exploratory activities and from contact with submarine debris, pipelines or spills; face increased competition for onshore facilities; incur problems in the marketability of fishery products; and face possible adverse impacts on fishery resources, spawning grounds or nursery sites stemming from oil spills, use of dispersants, chronic air pollution, dredging, dumping of drilling muds, and tanker operations. In a recent review of the literature on oil/fishing conflicts around the world, Miles and Geselbrach ~ found that the available data on instances of oil/fishing interactions suggest that the major conflicts that have occurred to date have been those between fishing operations and the oil and gas industry--most notably, loss of access to fishing grounds, gear damage from debris, removal of obsolete installations, and reduced marketability of products as a result of superficial contamination by spills. Conflicts vis-?~-vis marine resources and the environment, the authors report, are of narrower scope and do not appear to be long-lasting. 2 With regard to methods of conflict resolution, these authors point out that the major approaches utilized appear to be facilitating communication between the affected groups (including mediation), planning and regulation vis-a-vis patterns of use, the setting of standards and environmental regulation, and compensation. Compensation, 'the least resolved of all problems between the two industries' in the North Sea, according to Miles and Gesselbrach ~ is often not used where loss of access to fishing grounds is concerned, partly because it is difficult to translate loss of territory into loss in catch and to quantify these losses in monetary terms. On the other hand, in other cases, such as in Japan, compensation has been provided in advance to the fishing industry for possible damage to fishing gear.m In the United States, the major instances of oil/fishing conflicts have taken place in the Northwest Atlantic, in Alaska, and in California. In the Northwest Atlantic, fishing organizations and environmental groups have been largely successful in delaying the development of potential oil reserves in Georges Bank--an area notable for its fishery resources. 3,4 In Alaska, where the economic and social importance of fishery resources rivals the value of offshore oil and gas, fishing
Solving oil/fishing conflicts offshore California
235
organizations have been effective in delaying oil lease sales, in getting specific fish-rich tracts deleted from the lease sales, in getting protective regulations enacted, and in concluding agreements on the conduct of exploratory seismic operations through negotiations with the oil industry. 5,6 In California, intense oil/fishing conflicts have been taking place in recent years in both the south-central and northern parts of the state. In south-central California, discoveries of oil reserves made in the early 1980s on existing leases have dramatically increased the scope of oil development, incurring in the process considerable conflicts with the fishing industry. In Northern California, where leasing of offshore waters has been proposed by the federal government, fishing communities have mobilized politically to prevent, at least for the time being, the leasing and the immediate development of offshore oil reserves. The purpose of this article is to explore the nature of the oil/fishing conflicts offshore California in the 1980s, particularly in the southcentral coast of California where significant oil development is now taking place. First the context of oil development offshore California is reviewed, and the impacts of oil operations on commercial fishermen are analyzed, utilizing the results of a recent survey study. Second, both private and public efforts to mitigate negative impacts are analyzed. In conclusion, a set of observations on the outcomes of this controversy and its implications for other cases of oil/fishing conflicts around the world are presented.
OIL/FISHING CONFLICTS IN C A L I F O R N I A Oil development and fishing have coexisted in the south-central coast of California for a long time--albeit not always peacefully. Offshore oil development in the United States first made its appearance in the Santa Barbara area in 1896 (see Fig. 1). Offshore operations remained confined to the shoreline and nearshore waters until the late 1950s when advances in offshore technology allowed for development in deeper waters. 7 Heightened exploration and development in the 1960s was brought to an abrupt halt in 1969 when the Santa Barbara oil spill occurredS----an event which proved catalytic in the rise of national, as well as of international environmental awareness. After a lull in development during the early 1970s in the aftermath of the oil spill, oil activity intensified in the late 1970s and in the 1980s. 7 Major oil finds were made in the early 1980s: current estimates place
Biliana Cicin-Sain, Art Tiddens
236
see ~set
L-~os Angeles
_.~
Fig. 1. South-Central coast of California.
the reserves in the Santa Barbara Channel and the Santa Maria Basin (see Fig. 1) at close to 2 billion barrels of crude oil. These reserves represent one of the largest discoveries in the US since Prudhoe Bay in Alaska in 1968 and one of the world's major oil provinces. 9 Offshore oil production in the area is expected to rise dramatically from a level of 80 000 barrels a day in 1984 to up to 400 000 barrels a day in 1994. l0 Oil/fishing conflicts began in the late 1950s as oil operations moved into deeper waters. Fishermen complained mainly about conflicts with seismic exploratory activity (which in those days used dynamite to produce acoustic signals, killing many fish in the process); about damage as a result of oil-related debris; and about the a b a n d o n m e n t of obsolete structures once the oil had been removed. 1~
TABLE 1 Summary of Major Impacts from Offshore Oil Development and Attendant Consequences Identified by Commercial Fishing Community in Santa Barbara Region, 1987
Major impacts
Attendant consequences
1. Preclusion from fishing grounds (caused by seismic interference, platforms and pipelines, presence of debris, ongoing oilfield construction activity)
If fishermen have to move from an area (no matter what the cause), possible consequences are: 1. Fishermen generally have to travel further and incur more travel time, costs, and personal hardship. 2. If gear is lost or damaged in a new territory, fishermen spend more down time repairing or replacing equipment 3. Fishermen fishing in non-oil areas face increased competition from fishermen displaced by oil activity 4. Fish catch decreases 5. There is less fish (and/or different species) for processors to process 6. Processors may need to travel further to unload the product, incurring higher costs 7. Loss of markets occur, as supply is disrupted or changed 8. Secondary or support industries may experience financial loss
2. Increased vessel traffic
1. Congestion at sea increases -----concerns with small boat safety ----conflicts with equipment 2. Competition for harbor space increases ----difficulties in unloading fish may also mean fewer fish for processors
3. Possible impacts on resources
1. Concern with the possible effects of seismic activity on eggs and larvae and on fish dispersal 2. Concern about the effects of drill muds and produced water on fishery resources and marine habitat 3. Concern with other adverse impacts on marine environments (e.g., potential for oil spills) 4. Ultimately, possible decline in fish populations
4. Gear loss/damage
1. Fishermen spend down-time repairing damage gear; replacement costs
5. Other impacts (payments by oil companies to some fishermen for moving gear or for not fishing)
1. Division of fishing community
Source: Adapted from Ref. 12.
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Biliana Cicin-Sain, Art Tiddens
It was in the early 1980s that conflict between the two industries reached a peak in the Santa Barbara area. Spokesmen for the commercial fishing industry report being impacted by oil development in a wide variety of ways. Table 1 summarizes the impacts reported in a study which, in 1987, surveyed commercial fishermen and representatives of the major fishing organizations and of the major fish processing companies in the Santa Barbara Channel/Santa Maria Basin area. 12,13 TABLE 2
Nature of Personal and Fishing Community Impacts Resulting from Oil Development as Identified by Commercial Fishermen (1987 Mail Survey of Santa Barbara Commercial Fishermen) 1 Personal impact
2 General impact on fish industry
3 No impact
4 Don't know
Interference from support vessels and equipment
69% (38)
38% (21)
11% (6)
7% (4)
Discharge of drilling muds and fluids
57% (32)
46% (26)
5% (3)
11% (6)
Forced off fishing grounds
55% (31)
54% (30)
11% (6)
10% (6)
Increased costs and travel time to fishing grounds
51% (29)
38% (21)
11% (6)
20% (11)
Decreased fish catch
48% (27)
46% (26)
11% (6)
14% (8)
Snags from seafloor debris or anchor scars
45% (25)
54% (30)
11% (6)
13% (7)
Adverse impact on habitat
45% (25)
48% (27)
4% (2)
14% (8)
Adverse effects on fishery resources
43% (24)
46% (26)
9% (5)
18% (10)
Competition for dock/pier space
23% (13)
29% (16)
21% (12)
25% (14)
Impacts
Note: Percentages indicate the proportion of respondents who identified a particular impact, and the figures in parentheses indicate the number of respondents reporting a particular impact. Some respondents identified both a personal impact and general impact on the industry, therefore percentages do not total 100%. Source: Ref. 12, p. 10.
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239
Table 2 provides more detail on the impacts identified by the rank-and-file commercial fishermen in response to a close-ended question in the mail questionnaire which provided a list of possible impacts. Responses to a follow-up open-ended question on personal impacts were similar to the information obtained in the close-ended question above with two major additions: a large proportion to respondents identified interference from seismic exploration operations and gear loss as major adverse impacts. As can be seen from these data, fishing spokesmen report a variety of impacts related to fishing operations, as is the case in other fish/oil conflicts. In addition, they point to other, second- and third-order consequences. The effects of area preclusion, for example, are not only that fishermen can no longer fish in traditional grounds, but may also have to travel further to other areas, incurring more travel time, costs, and personal hardship. Fishermen in non-oil areas are, in turn, affected by the increased competition, and processors--who may need to travel further to pick up the product or whose supplies and markets may be disrupted--are negatively impacted as well.
P R I V A T E A N D PUBLIC A P P R O A C H E S TO M I T I G A T I N G T H E CONFLICT
The oil/fishing conflicts in the Santa Barbara area have been addressed both through a private negotiating effort between the two industries and through mitigation efforts by the local and state governments. These efforts are described in turn. Private mediation
As the oil activity intensified in the early 1980s, the complaints of the local fishermen focused on four major issues: lack of communication between the fishermen and the responsible oil companies and the relevant government agencies on advance planning to prevent conflicts; gear damage and other economic losses; conflicts with the seismic exploration vessels; possible long-term damage to the fishery resources; and long-term loss of fishing opportunity as the number of platforms and associated oil activity grew. There was no consensus within the fishing community as to how these problems might be solved. Some members wanted to form an alliance with environmental groups and resolve these issues in the public arena (including the courts), while
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others, not trusting environmental interests, wished to deal directly with the oil companies on an industry-to-industry basis. TM After a series of meetings between the two industries and the relevant government agencies, initiated by the area Sea Grant Marine Advisor in early 1983, the Seattle-based Mediation Institute was brought in to provide neutral mediation assistance. 15 At a tense confrontational meeting in April 1983, spokesmen from the two industries agreed to enter into private negotiations aided by the third-party mediators but excluding the press and governmental representatives.
The joint oil~fishing committee The negotiating effort found form in the Joint Oil/Fishing Committee (the Joint Committee) that initially included three representatives from each industry and operated under the following guidelines: discussions were to be kept confidential (even from each industry's constituents), any public statement from the committee had to be agreed to jointly, decisions had to be unanimous, the committee would try to meet monthly, and either side could adandon the effort at any time. 16 The mediator and the advisor would attend the meetings, but only in an advisory capacity. It was implicit in this private agreement that the fishermen would stay out of the public process (e.g. public hearings, agency meetings) as long as private negotiations were productive. ~6 Since 1983, the Joint Committee has not only survived as a mediating body (while initially funded through private foundations, the Joint Committee is now supported by the oil companies), but has also made substantial progress in negotiating, if not completely resolving, a number of the oil/fishing conflicts along California's south-central coast. In addressing the early concerns of the fishermen, the Committee first established an Oil/Fisheries Liaison Office to serve as an information clearinghouse for both industries, as a place where each industry would contact the other, where notification of seismic exploratory activity and, conversely, fishing seasons, could be disseminated, and where fishermen could get help with their loss claims to oil companies and to the federal Fishermen's Contingency Fund. The Liaison Office was managed by the Joint Committee, staffed by a marine biologist, and funded by a consortium of local oil companies, the California Coastal Operators Group (CCOG). The Joint Committee next worked on rationalizing the seismic exploration notification process and alleviating conflicts between fishing and seismic vessels, work that had been started by the Marine Advisor. The Committee also delineated and implemented, on a voluntary basis,
Solving oil/fishing conflicts offshore California
241
traffic corridors for oil service support vessels, again to minimize conflicts between fishing and oil operators traffic. Both programs were run through the Liaison Office which quickly became the focal point for information and communication between the two industries. A third item concerned resource issues. The Joint Committee spawned two resource committees which included representatives of government resource management agencies---the Fish Dispersal Steering Committee and the Eggs and Larvae Committee.17 The committees undertook joint fact finding efforts on the question of possible oil activity damage to living marine resources. Regarding fish dispersal due to seismic testing, acting on the advice of government agency representatives and a panel of agreed upon scientists, the Fish Dispersal Steering Committee contracted for (what would become) a series of studies on this issue. A similar strategy was undertaken by the Eggs and Larvae Committee and the results of its work, discussed below, were released in April 1988. A final issue, and by far the most controversial, concerned compensation for the long-term loss of fishing opportunity. The Committee addressed this question by commissioning a study by an economics consulting firm to determine, through confidential interviews with the fishermen and economic modeling, the economic loss to fishermen as a result of oil development. The results of this study were to be a starting point for an adequate compensation scheme. Though the study was completed and presented to the Joint Committee, discussions on compensation broke down in late 1985. Up to that point, then, the private negotiations between the two industries had made significant progress in the achievement of timely communication between the two industries on issues of seismic testing, gear loss and traffic corridors, and initiated studies on living resource issues, but had made little progress on long-term compensation. All this took place during a very crucial period for public decisionmaking regarding oil development in the Santa Barbara region-fourteen major proposals for new offshore platforms, pipelines, and related onshore facilities were under consideration by local, state and federal authorities. Throughout all of these deliberations, the commercial fishermen tended, by and large, to stay out of the public proceedings, concentrating their efforts, instead, on the private negotiations. A review of the public record of the permitting process for two of the major proposals considered (Chevron/Texaco's Point ArgueUo project and Exxon's Santa Ynez Unit) showed limited participation by fishermen in the public proceedings. ~8 Rather, it was largely public interest groups and government agencies, not the fishermen, which
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raised fishery-related concerns at the public meetings and hearings held to consider the permitting of these oil development projects. The 1985 survey o f the mediation effort
A survey conducted by the authors in 1985 sought to explore the usefulness of these negotiation efforts as a model of conflict resolution. ~1 Eighteen personal interviews were conducted with individuals from both industries currently serving on the Joint Committee, past members of the Committee, other members of each industry not directly involved with the Committee but considered to be opinion leaders in their respective industries, and neutral advisors to the Joint Committee. z° Respondents were asked to comment on the nature and origin of the mediation effort, the 'representativeness' and progress of the Joint Committee, and on alternatives to mediation. Although many of the respondents said that initially they had been apprehensive about mediation, most thought that private mediation was a good idea, realized that there were problems to be worked out and saw that 'nothing could be done if the two groups didn't sit down and talk. '21'22 Many hoped that this new approach might provide a better and more expedient arena for conflict resolution than the courts or previous confrontational postures, z3'z4 One clear benefit of the early committee meetings was educational. Both sides had to learn each other's business, terminology, and techniques. Committee respondents felt that this helped open communication and establish understanding and trust. In general, however, non-committee representatives from both industries felt that representation on the committee could be improved. Fishermen, in particular, felt that those on the committee did not represent all of the fishing community. Moreover, although initially, informal fishermen caucuses were to be held by Joint Committee representatives to inform other fishermen of negotiatiori discussions, it appears that few such caucuses have been held. Representatives from both industries were in agreement that the 'easiest' issues, which had been addressed first, had been resolved with a great deal of success: i.e. the establishment of the Liaison Office, improvement in the notification of seismic activity, and the establishment of voluntary traffic corridors for both industries. There was less agreement on progress made on resource issues. While some praised the committee for initiating the studies on the effects of seismic activity on fish dispersal and eggs and larvae, others foresaw (correctly, as it turned out) that many years would be needed before the impacts
Solving oil/fishing conflicts offshore California
243
could be fully understood. The most skepticism was expressed on the issue of long-term compensation for loss of fishing opportunity. In general, fishermen expressed a feeling of frustration with the lack of progress on this issue. Oil industry representatives, in contrast, expressed concern over the precedent-setting nature of any compensation agreements and the implications these might pose for other oil/fishing conflicts. Oil industry respondents, when asked about their overall perceptions of this type of conflict resolution, were unanimous in their praise, saying this approach was 'necessary, appropriate, and valuable'. H Their answers emphasized the importance of the process itself, its success in starting communications and in establishing a more positive relationship between the two industries. One respondent commented, 'the voluntary system works w e l l . . , if [the] government were doing it, we wouldn't have made ~ of the progress we have made'. H Others had more mixed views. Only one fisherman out of eight responded favorably saying that it was the 'best possible approach under the circumstances' adding, however, that 'fishing was still losing but at least slowing down the losing process'. Another fishermen noted that 'some good things have come out of it [the private negotiations] but mostly it's the s a m e . . . ' Five fishermen voiced serious doubts of the whole process saying such things as 'It is a delay tactic', or 'I don't think that we should have taken this route, we should have stayed in the public arena instead'. One fisherman expressed some fears that the Joint Committee was becoming too powerful, that, in fact, 'the public agencies were informally beginning to rely too much on the committee for i n f o r m a t i o n . . , the committee is now making public p o l i c y . . . ' The neutral advisors, by and large, thought that the Joint Committee's efforts had been partially successful, especially in solving many of the operational conflicts, but voiced some doubts about problems of representation.ll All respondents were well aware of the alternatives to private mediation, as these were the only means available prior to the formation of the Joint Committee. It was generally agreed that while such options as: participation in public hearings, lobbying the appropriate legislators or public agencies, or legal action through the courts remained open, the fishermen had not pursued them. One fisherman noted, however, that the 'oil companies' participation in the public process did not decrease because their representatives are paid to go; the fishermen aren't'. At least one fishing representative felt that, in hindsight, the fishermen should not have quit going to the public meetings. 1|
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Biliana Cicin-Sain, Art Tiddens
Current status (mid-1988) of the private mediation efforts Since 1985, three of the four issues that brought the oil and fishing industries into mediation have progressed much as expected. The Liaison Office was functioning smoothly and communication between the two industries through that office continues smoothly. Though there were periodic problems, there were fewer conflicts between seismic and fishing vessels as a result of improvements in the notification procedure. Vessel corridors were being observed, though there were periodic outbreaks of non-compliance. Some progress had also been made on the issue of living resources. In June 1987, the Minerals Management Service (MMS) released the firsh dispersal study (the genesis of which goes back to the Joint Committee) titled, 'Effect of Sound from a Geophysical Survey Device on Fishing Success'. While the investigators (Batelle Memorial Institute) found a reduction in catch-per-unit of effort using a 'hook and line' method of fishing, they cautioned against drawing general conclusions and suggested further investigation. 25 In April 1988 the American Petroleum Institute released the results of its study on the impact of geophysical acoustic signals on the eggs and larvae of the northern anchovy (the genesis of this study can also be traced to the Joint Committee). The investigators (Tracor Applied Sciences) found that 'noticeable impacts on anchovy eggs and larvae would only result from multiple exposures in close proximity to full seismic arrays'. 26 Further studies are underway. The one issue that has still eluded the Joint Committee is that of long-term compensation for loss of fishing opportunity, since the oil industry's refusal to conclude agreement on a compensation package for the fishing industry in 1985. More recently, the Joint Committee and the Liaison Office have redirected their efforts to the public arena and have sought to obtain assistance from the State of California to mitigate the negative consequences of oil development, as is explained later in our discussion of public mitigation efforts. While they have not been willing to agree to an overall compensation package to the fishing industry, oil companies, however, have been providing payments to individual fishermen to 'assist' the oil industry in a variety of ways--such as moving fishing gear or serving as watchguards for oil equipment--activities which the more skeptical view as 'paying fishermen not to f i s h ' . 27 These side payments to individual fishermen have proven quite controversial and are, according to some of the older fishermen, tearing the fishing community apart through petty jealousies and bickering. 2s Some claim that this is a conscious 'divide and conquer' strategy on the
Solving oil/fishing conflicts offshore California
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part of the oil industry; as one fisherman put it, 'The oil industry has successfully divided the Santa Barbara fishing fraternity in half'. 28
Public mitigation efforts Several major types of mitigation efforts have been made by various public agencies to alleviate the negative impacts of offshore oil development on commercial fisheries. The first is specific permit conditions imposed on individual oil development projects. To cite one example, in the case of the Chevron/Texaco project, the following fishery mitigation permit conditions were imposed: ' . . . ample notice given to fishermen before commencing any construction; contribution to a Local Fisheries Contingency Fund and a Fisheries Enhancement Fund; observance of vessel traffic corridors; removal of construction mooring buoys and any other equipment lost overboard during construction; shrouding of all pipelines to prevent snagging during fish trawling operations. 29 Other major types of public mitigation measures are the two fishery funds established by Santa Barbara County as part of its permitting of onshore oil and gas facilities: the Fisheries Contigency Fund and the Fisheries Enhancement Fund. The Fisheries Contingency Fund (established in 1987) is aimed at assisting fishermen in cases of gear damage as a result of oil operations. While in federal waters (3 to 200 miles offshore), cases of gear damage are supposed to receive compensation under section IV of the federal Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act Amendments (OCSLAA), 3° the processing of claims under this provision of the OCSLAA has been notoriously poor, with fishermen often having to wait for more than a year to receive payment, s The Local Fisheries Contingency Fund was thus established to cover gear damages incurred in state waters (0 to 3 miles) which are not covered under the OCSLAA and to temporarily compensate fishermen for their gear losses while they await compensation from the Federal Fishermen's Contigency Fund. 31 The Fisheries Enhancement Fund was established by Santa Barbara County to mitigate adverse effects on commercial fishing arising from the construction and operation of offshore oil and gas facilities. Permit conditions on individual oil development projects require oil companies to pay into the Fund based on the level of impacts individual projects have on commercial fishing operations. Funds are to be used for a variety of enhancement projects not provided under permit conditions and to offset cumulative impacts which are often difficult to mitigate through project specific permit conditions. In fiscal year
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1987/88, oil companies had paid $33 992 into the Fund. This amount was expected to grow to $162 033 in 1988/89 and to remain at that level for several years. Enhancement projects approved during the first year of operation include an ice machine, a fish hoist, the setting up of a net repair area, and studies on the marketing of underutilized species.~2 A final form of compensation is expected to come from the State of California. In April 1986, the State received $338 million dollars in settlement of legal action pertaining to section 8 (g) of the O C S L A A - which concerns the disposition of oil and gas revenues generated in the 3 to 6 mile zone offshore or the first 3 miles of federal waters (this state/federal suit had been pending in the courts for a number of years with the royalties in question being placed in an escrow account). As part of the settlement, the State will receive an additional $289 million recoupment payment to be received over the next fifteen years. 3z Efforts were made in 1987 to target some of these monies for commercial fishing mitigation in the form of Assembly Bill 2605 which was to compensate fishermen with a total of approximately six million dollars in compensatory programs through 1990. The Joint Committee and Liaison Office lobbied heavily for this bill. In January 1988, the State Office of Environmental Affairs, after working closely with the Liaison Office, the Mediator, and the Joint Committee proposed that Assembly Bill 2605 be incorporated into the Governor's 1988 budget. A $2.1 million dollar Fisheries Impact Program was subsequently approved for the 1988/89 fiscal year and includes the following programs (for the entire state): assistance in the development of new fishing grounds, new gear, or new methods of fishing; procurement of additional storage and working space for staging and repair; improvement of vessel fire and personnel safety and survival equipment; removal of debris related to oil and gas development from the seafloor; and fisheries marketing assistance. The programs will be administered by four state agencies and similar budgets are planned for the following two budget years. 33 CONCLUSIONS To summarize, the commercial fishing spokesmen in the south-central coast of California report a variety of impacts resulting from offshore oil development activities. These include not only the typical area displacement effects reported in other cases, but also the unleashing of a chain of events which affects, among others, fishermen working in other locations as well as processors whose supply sources and markets may be disrupted.
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Efforts to mitigate the oil/fishing conflict have been made in both the private and public realms. With a few exceptions, the fishermen initially opted for working out an agreement with the oil companies in the private face-to-face negotiations of the Joint Committee rather than pursuing their cause in the public arena. The success of the private negotiation effort has been decidedly mixed. On the one hand, good and stable avenues of communication have been established between the two industries, and the Liaison Office serves as an important focal point which can often preclude conflict by clarifying issues and avoiding misunderstandings. However, problems exist in the operation of the Committee. Most prominent among these is the apparent lack of periodic and organized contact between the representatives of the Committee and the rank-and-file fishermen. This problem is exacerbated by the increasing importance which the Committee and Liaison Office appear to be assuming: increasingly government agencies are turning to them for a 'one-stop' easy assessment of fishermen needs and opinions rather than taking the more costly and complex route of systematically canvassing the opinions and needs of the fishing industry. In terms of specific accomplishments, under the aegis of the Joint Committee, good progress has been made in addressing problems related to seismic exploration, in establishing a voluntary traffic scheme, and in launching scientific studies to determine the effects of seismic exploration on fish behavior. On the other hand, no agreement on compensation has been reached in the private negotiations, although this was one of the major motivating forces--'carrots'--that brought--and kept--the fishermen at the negotiating table. As discussed, the only kind of mitigation measure that has been received by the fishermen has come as a result of action in the public arena, with the exception of some ad hoc payments made by the oil companies to individual fishermen. Considering that the private negotiations on compensation were taking place at the same time as major decisions about the permitting of oil facilities were going on, skeptical observers could well argue that the private negotiations were used by the oil companies as a strategy to keep the fishermen--'lured by the carrot of compensation'---occupied at the negotiating table, while reducing the amount of trouble or 'noise' which this group of ocean users could have produced in the public proceedings. Considering the kinds of mitigation measures that have been adopted by public agencies, as we discussed, a number of mitigation measures have been enacted by local and state authorities--ranging from permit conditions on specific projects, to the county-imposed fishing funds, to
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state funds for fishery facilities and other fishery development projects. The level of mitigation provided by these efforts and the total amount of funds available have been rather small, partially, we think, because fishermen were not, as a group, heavily involved in the deliberations on permitting conditions or in the establishment of the two county funds (although individual fishermen did participate in these proceedings). By and large, the impacts to the fishing industry identified in the environmental impact assessments prepared for each oil development project have tended to be underestimated. This is partially due to the fact that each environmental impact report focuses on impacts on fisheries mainly in the limited area occupied by the proposed new oil installations--thus, broader second and third-order effects are generally not considered. Moreover, fishermen have to tangibly demonstrate-through past fish tickets or other such evidence--that they had fished in a particular area over a number of years. This is often difficult for fishermen to do because their reporting of fishing locations is often distorted for competition reasons. In conclusion and considering the implications of this case for similar oil/fishing controversies elsewhere, it is unfortunate, in our view, that for a number of crucial years during which many important public decisions about oil development were being made, that private mediation was essentially used to replace the public process rather than to supplement it. 34 In conflicts which pit contestants of unequal power and resources, it would seem most advisable for the weaker parties (which the fishermen typically are) to pursue their grievances simultaneously in all available arenas, both public and private. We recognize that this may be difficult for groups such as commercial fishermen whose time and funds are quite limited. In the Santa Barbara case, however, what mitigation came to the fishermen came from public authorities. It is, after all, the governmental agencies which are stewards of the publicly owned resources of our ocean which should be most concerned with protecting the marine environment and with mitigating the negative impacts on other ocean users which arise from the exploitation of offshore oil resources.
A C K N O W L E D GEMENTS Some of the data reported in this article (interviews with participants in the private negotiations between the oil and fishing industries) were collected as part of research sponsored in part by N O A A , National Sea Grant College Program, Department of Commerce under grant No.
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NA80AA-D-00120, project No. R/MP-1-14F through the California Sea Grant College Program; this assistance is gratefully acknowledged. Thanks are also due to the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education for its sponsorship of research on oil/fishing conflicts offshore California and to the Santa Barbara County Energy Division for the use of the survey on impacts of offshore oil development on commercial fishermen conducted in 1987. Many thanks are due to the individuals whose interview responses are cited in the article for their time and thoughtful replies.
NOTES A N D R E F E R E N C E S
1. Miles, E. & Geselbracht, L., Fisheries and Conflicting Uses of the Sea. Paper prepared for the European Workshop on the Regulation of Fisheries: Legal, Economic, and Social Aspects, Tromso, Norway, June 1986, pp. 29-37. 2. It should be noted that a number of studies on which Miles and Gesselbracht base their analysis date from the late 1970s and early 1980s. Recent and extensive national and international media coverage has highlighted the 'dying of the North Sea,' as a result of pollution and of oil operations. 3. Colgan, C. S., The Search for an Ocean Management Policy: The Georges Bank Case. In The Politics of Offshore Oil, ed. J. Goldstein, Praeger, New York, 1982, pp. 29-71. 4. The fact that the first exploratory wells drilled in the area have been dry has also worked to reduce industry interest in the area. 5. Jones, G. K., Harvesting the Ocean's Resources: Oil or Fish? Southern California Law Review, 60 (1987) 587-648. 6. Hanley, P. T., (ed.) A Manual for Geophysical Operations in Fishing Areas of Alaska. Prepared by Representatives of the Oil/Fisheries Group of Alaska, 2nd Edition, May 1984, pp. 1-18. 7. Cicin-Sain, B., Offshore Oil Development in California: Challenges to Governments and to the Public interest. Public Affairs Report, 27 (1 and 2) (February-April 1986) 1-15. 8. Nash, A. E., Mann, D. E. & Olsen, P. G., Oil Pollution and the Public Interest: A Study of the Santa Barbara Oil Spill. Institute of Governmental Studies, University of California, Berkeley, CA, 1972, pp. 1-157. 9. Williams, R., Drilling Flurries in the Channel and San Pedro Bay. Oil and Gas Journal, 82 (2) (9 January 1984) 64-8. 10. Covington, T., Executive Director, California Coastal Operators Group. Personal communication, Santa Barbara, California, August 1988. 11. Cicin-Sain, B., Tiddens, A. & Doss, C., Oil/Fishing Conflicts in the South Central Coast of California. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Fisheries Society, Sun Valley, Idaho, September 1985.
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12. Kronman, M. & Cicin-Sain, B., An Assessment of the Needs of the Local Commercial Fishing Industry and a Plan to Mitigate Impacts from Increased Oil Development in the Santa Barbara Channel and Santa Maria Basin. Report prepared for the Santa Barbara County Energy Division, August 1987. pp. iv-v, 10. 13. The study was conducted by Mick Kronman and author Cicin-Sain in August 1987 on behalf of the Santa Barbara County Energy Division to ascertain the impacts of oil development on the commercial fishing industry and to assess the attendant needs of the fishing industry. The study involved: (1) a mail survey sent to the entire population of licensed commercial fishermen in Santa Barbara County (N = 702) (a response rate of about 10% was obtained); (2) personal interviews with representatives of the major fishing organizations in the area ( N = 11); (3) personal interviews with the major seafood processors in the area (N = 10); and (4) public meetings to solicit fishermen's opinions.~Z 14. Allen, R., Commercial fisherman, Santa Barbara. Personal communication, August 1985. 15. Giannini, J., Negotiation of OCS Conflicts: The Commercial Fishermen's Perspective. In Coastal Zone and Continental Shelf Conflict Resolution: Improving Ocean Use and Resource Dispute Management, ed., J. D. Nyhart, Sea Grant College Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, November 1985, MITSG 85-28, pp. 105-6. 16. Uchikura, D., Negotiation of OCS Conflicts: The Oil Industry's Perspective. In Coastal Zone and Continental Shelf Conflict Resolution: Improving Ocean Use and Resource Dispute Management, ed., J. D. Nyhart, Sea Grant College Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, November 1985, MITSG 85-28, pp. 107-10. 17. Knaster, A. S., Negotiation of OCS Conflicts: The Mediator's Perspective. In Coastal Zone and Continental Shelf Conflict Resolution: Improving Ocean Use and Resource Dispute Management, ed., J. D. Nyhart, Sea Grant College Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, November 1985, MITSG 85-28, pp. 101-3. 18. For the EXXON project, a total of five fishermen testified at the public hearings which spanned a year-and-a-half time period and two fishermen were cited as sources in the final environmental impact statement on the project. For the C H E V R O N project, four fishermen provided testimony and one fisherman was cited in the preparation of the environmental impact report (review of the record conducted by author Tiddens.) ~9 19. Tiddens, A., A Case Study of Public Decision-Making in Santa Barbara County on the Point Arguello Field and Gaviota Processing Facility Area Study and Chevron/TEXACO Development Plans EIR/EIS. Unpublished paper, Department of Political Science, University of California, Santa Barbara, July 1985. 20. The eighteen interviews included: all five oil industry members serving on the Joint Committee; one oil industry representative previously associated with the committee; two of four commercial fishermen serving on the Committee (of the remaining members, one declined to be interviewed because of lack of time and distaste of academic studies while the other
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21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30.
31. 32. 33. 34.
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was out to sea and unavailable); two other fishermen who had previously served on the committee or served in an adiunct position to the committee; six other opinion leaders in the fishing community not formally involved in the committee proceedings; three of the four advisors to the Joint Committee (with the exception of the mediator who did not want to comment on the process while the negotiations were still ongoing). We also spoke informally with several agency and interest group representatives involved in oil development deliberations. 1~ Crabbe, G., Commercial fisherman, Santa Barbara. Personal communication, 10 August, 1985. Giannini, J. C. Jr., Owner, Marine Service and Equipment, Commercial Fisherman, Morro Bay, California. Personal communication, 2 August 1985. Manning, L., Program Representative, Marine Advisory Program, Santa Barbara. Personal communication, 10 July 1985. Uchikura, D., Supervisor, Offshore District, Land Department, Western Division, Chevron USA. Personal Communication, 31 July 1985. California Sea Grant College Program, University of California, Marine Advisory Program. Oil and Gas Project Newsletter for Fishermen and Offshore Operators, 4(6) (June 1987) 2. California Sea Grant College Program, Univeristy of California, Marine Advisory Program. Oil and Gas Project Newsletter for Fishermen and Offshore Operators, 4(10) (October 1987) 2. Hauser, H., Fishermen Get Jobs Out of ARCO Protest. Santa Barbara News Press, (27 June 1987) Al, AS. Hauser, H., Fishermen Say They're Split by ARCO Hiring Their Friends. Santa Barbara News Press, (31 May 1987) A8, B1, B4. Santa Barbara County, Resource Management Department, Chevron Point Arguello Proiect" Final Permit Conditions, 1985, pp. 26-8. Title IV of the federal Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act Amendments established the Fishermen's Contingency Fund to compensate for damages to fishing gear incurred as a result of oil and gas activities on the outer continental shelf. Santa Barbara County, Resource Management Department, Local Fishermen's Contingency Fund and Fisheries Enhancement Fund, 1987, pp. 2-3. Sharpless, J., Annual Review of the Coastal Resources and Energy Assistance Program, Sacramento, California, February 1988, pp. 1-35. California Sea Grant Program, Marine Advisory Program, Oil and Gas Project Newsletter for Fishermen and Offshore Operators, 5(10) (October 1988) 1-2. A similar view is expressed in" Susskind, L. & Ozawa, C., Mediated Negotiation in the Public Sector. American Behavioral Scientist, 27(2) (November/December 1983) 255-79.