Commentary: Coastal Commission director should keep his job

Why weaken the Coastal Commission staff with a record of successes like these?

Since 1973, the Coastal Commission has been the agency of last resort in many coastal issues.

But Charles Lester, the commission’s executive director, might lose his job due to the influence of development interests over those of the environment, something the Coastal Act has been a key protector of.

Consider a few of the agency’s achievements:

• A toll-road would have been rammed through San Onofre State Park. Despite immense pressure, the commission killed this project at a 2008 Del Mar Fairgrounds hearing packed with 3000 enthusiastic protesters, keeping the park and Trestles as originally conceived. (I was lucky to attend this huge event, where so many people spoke for nature.)

• Banning Ranch, a very important piece of habitat in Newport Beach to be considered by the agency in March, would be buried beneath development.

• Marblehead in San Clemente would be a plateau of dense units overlooking the ocean with none of the public trails and arroyos the commission created. An overly large outlet mall was still built, however.

• Crystal Cove’s small, open stretch would be covered by Newport Coast homes, right to the bluff edges.

• Beaches in many communities would be inaccessible without the strong enforcement written into the Coastal Act.

• Many areas of California’s central and northern coasts would be locked up behind estates for the wealthy few. Currently, the Gaviota Coast north of Santa Barbara is under relentless threat.

• The tidelands of Bolsa Chica would be history.

• Sea World might be busy capturing more killer whales to pen in small pools and train for our pleasure, instead of leaving them wild in the open ocean.

• Other whale species might be less numerous along the coast, if the commission hadn’t stopped underwater explosive testing proposed by other agencies for various purposes.

• Views of the vast, shimmering Pacific we enjoy from public roads and lands would be restricted by large buildings.

• Visitors to the coast would pay more, if not for the commission’s emphasis on affordable user-serving facilities.

The action against Lester — commissioners are considering terminating him — puts an example of good government at some risk. The Coastal Act was designed to put a firewall between finances and other considerations.

Though it has imposed unnecessary delays on some projects, it’s the best tool we’ve got for environmental protection.

If development-friendly commissioners succeed in forcing Lester out in a February hearing, we will lose a man who has been a smart administrator with strong allegiance to the ethics of conservation.

Lester should keep his job.

About the author:

KEVIN NELSON is the founder of the Nature Commission, a non-profit advocacy effort to increase preservation of wildlands near urban areas.