By early August, managers of the Guadalupe oil field in the southwesternmost corner of San Luis Obispo County expect to start shipping tens of thousands of truckloads of oily sand to the Santa Maria landfill.

Last week, the state Coastal Commission denied an appeal by a group of Santa Maria residents, removing the last regualtory hurdle for the project.

"This certainly gives us the green light to go ahead," said Chevron project manager Gonzalo Garcia. Chevron recently purchased Unocal Corp., the previous owner of the oil field.

The project calls for about 70 trucks a day over four to five years to haul approximately 860,000 cubic yards of contaminated sand. The sand will be used as cover material at the landfill, which is being closed.

The group of Santa Maria residents that appealed the project to the Coastal Commission said Santa Barbara County residents had not received adwquate public notice.

However, the commission found the appeal to be baseless and refused to hear it.

Thre project is intended to solve two water quality problems, Garcia said.

In addition to expediting the closure of the landfill, the project also gives Chevron a place to dispose of contaminated sand that was dug up because it was in danger of being washed into the ocean or the Santa Maria River.

"This has been a long process," Garcia said. "This is the best environmental solution."

The Guadalupe oil field is the site of one of the nation's biggest oil spills.

Millions of gallons of a kerosene-like substance that was used to thin the viscous crude oil were spilled at the field.

State water officials have ordered the oil company to dig up all those areas of contamination that pose an immediate danger of polluting water.

County planners estimate that at least 47,000 truck trips will be needed to haul all of the sand to the landfill.

 

The Guadalupe City council agreed Tuesday night to draft a proposal to accept more than $900,000 in benefits from Chevron once the company begins trucking contaminated soil through town on its way to the Santa Maria Regional Landfill.

The council voted 4-0, with Councilman Carlos Aguilera abstaining, to allow staff to move forward to draft an agreement with the oil company.

The proposal would include a one-time donation of $250,000 to improve the recreation fields at Jack O'Connell Park; $31,200 a year for five years to fund crossing guards at key points along Highway 1; and $100,000 for two full-time firefighters for five years.

Also in the agreement is a stipulation that trucks reduce their speed through town. Caltrans has requested the company fund a stop at the intersection of Highways 1 and 166.

With the council approval, the city attorney and city engineer will look over the language of the agreement to make sure the final document protects the city. Neither the city attorney nor the city enineer were involved in the initial talks between mayor Lupe Alvarez and Chevron officials.

Chevron is looking at using Highway 1 to haul the thousands of truck loads of contaminated sand from a Unocal clean-up site in San Luis Obispo County. Unocal was bought by Chevron, who is now overseeing the project.

The oil company has been working to clean up the Nipomo-Guadalupe Dunes site since 1990, and officials plan to move 860,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil over five years from the site to the Santa Maria Regional Landfill. The landfill, east of Santa Maria on Main Street, has been permitted to accept this type of soil.

Santa Maria officials will use the contaminated sand, officially called nonhazardous impacted soil, as a capping layer to close the landfill. For taking the sand from the site, Santa Maria expects millions of dollars in fees paid by Chevron.

However, the project has been stalled since March when a group of Santa Maria residents appealed to the California Coastal Commission. The commission is slated to decide Thursday whether they will hear the appeal.

Chevron is also still meeting witht he county to work on obtaining permits needed to move trucks on county roads.

The council discussed the agreement before about 65 residents. Many in the audience were uniformed members of the volunteer fire department, and many others were affiliated with the Guadalupe Youth Football team who brought their children to show support for the recreation component of the deal.

Sal Reynoso, with the volunteer fire department, quieted the room when he urged the council to accept the agreement by describing how two full-time firefighters could help the department with response time.

"There is an urgency to get a fill-time firefighter," he said, pointing out that when dealing with injuries, minutes can be the difference between life, brain damage or death.

Though many were in favor of the deal, others questioned how the project would impact businesses along Highway 1, the road condition and the community's health.

However, Alvaraez, the city's main architect of the agreement, pointed out the ocmpany has fulfilled Caltrans' requirements for the project and could use the highway with or without city approval.

Aguilera tested Kyle Rutherford, the Chevron representative, to see if the company would be willing to fund the entire fire department to go full time or increase the amount of stipend the volunteers are given.

But that idea was not ebranced by the council and Rutherford said he was not at the meeting to negotiate but to present the current agreement.

Aguilera did not state a reason for abstaining from the council vote.

 

The county Board of Supervisors gave the go-ahead Tuesday to a massive beach cleanup project that has been years in the making.

The cleanup will move 860,000 cubic yards of polluted sand and soil from the Guadalupe Dunes, which is mostly in San Luis Obispo County , to a Santa Maria landfill in Santa Barbara County .

Supervisors tuned down a request by Dan Kirk and others in Santa Maria to delay the project. Kirk said Santa Barbara County residents had not received proper public notice.

The county staff, however, outlined numerous examples of when the public in both counties were told of the move. Santa Maria Mayor Larry Lavagnino backed them up. The city of Santa Maria supports the move, he said.

Gonzalo F. Garcia, operations team manager for Unocal Corp., which operates the site, said Unocal hopes to begin moving the soil by May 1. If Kirk appeals to the state Coastal Commission, as he threatened to do, that would delay the operation further.

The removal would put up to 300 trucks a day on the 16 miles of road between the dunes and the landfill for two to four ears. County planners estimate the total number of trips over the life of the project at 47,779.

The San Luis Obispo Planning Commission approved the shipments July 28.

The shipment would be the final phase of a cleanup that began in the mid-1990s at the 2,700-acre Guadalupe Oil Field. From 1946 to 1994 the site produced oil and natural gas. In the 1950s, oil producers began to use a hydrocarbon called diluent to thin heavy crude oil.

Over the decades, diluent leaked from storage tanks and pipelines into the sand, soil and groundwater. It threatened to pollute the Santa Maria River , the Pacific Ocean and the aquifer under the Santa Maria Valley .

Unocal leased the property for 50 years and operated it as an oil field until the pollution was discovered in the 1990s. As part of a settlement with the county and state Coastal Commission, the oil company bought the property in 2002.

Since the late 1990s, Unocal and a committee that includes the Department of Fish & Game and the Coastal Commission, among others, have been trying to find ways to get rid of the contaminated soil and sand.

Should the shipment go forward, the soil will be used as part of a process designed to cap the Santa Maria landfill to prevent rainwater from carrying its pollutants into the groundwater beneath the dump.

 

Unocal Corp. is negotiating with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to dedicate a conservation easement on the 2,000-acre Guadalupe oil field.

Last week, the oil company recorded and irrevocable offer to dedicate the land in the southwest corner of San Luis Obispo County to a public trust group.

If the federal government accepts the easement, it will be managed as part of the Guadalupe-Nipomo National Wildlife Refuge.

The site is polluted by millions of gallons of a crude-oil thinner, called diluent, which leaked from faulty pipes.

Unocal is decontaminating tainted sand removed in various cleanup digs and is experimenting with ways to clean up the bulk of the pollution, which lies underground.

This work will continue, but no other development will be allowed. And grazing will be limited to habitat restoration.

Although polluted, the oil field contains important coastal dunes habitat that is home to red-legged frogs, snowy plovers and a rare thistle plant.

Dune areas to the north and south are largely in public ownership.

Conservation of the oil field will be an additional step in conserving the dunes complex.

Unocal leased the property for 50 years and operated it as an oil field until the pollution was discovered in the 1990s.

As part of the settlement with the county and state Coastal Commission, the oil company bought the property in 2002.

The settlement also required Unocal to dedicate a conservation easement that will protect the property in perpetuity.

 

Nipomo Adobe Press: July 25, 2003
Guadalupe Excavation Halted
April Charlton

Excavating contaminated sand from the Guadalupe Oil Fields has stopped, but work on how to treat the sand and what to do with it once the cleanup project is finished is moving ahead.

Earlier this month, the county approved a contract with MRS Environmental Inc. to prepare a supplemental environmental impact report for the Unocal remediation project and subsequent disposal of the more than 600,000 cubic yards of contaminated sand.

It will take about 18 months for the SEIR and the public hearing process to be completed, according to Gonzalo Garcia, project manager.

"It's going to take another two to four years to get the rest of it cleaned up," Garcia said, adding additional permits will be needed to do more excavation after the SEIR is certified.

Garcia said about 360,000 cubic yards of sand have been excavated and are being stored on site but away from the wetlands. The large mountain of sand has been sealed, treated with "soil cement," and Unocal is waiting to get the green light to dispose of it.

The SEIR will address newly identified treatment and disposal methods for the excavated plumes and sumps of diluent at the site of a former Unocal oil field. Diluent is a petroleum-based substance that was used to dilute the thick crude oil found at the field to make it easier to pump.

Over the years, diluent leaded from pipes at several areas throughout the field, which was operated by other oil companies prior to Unocal taking over.

Unocal prefers treating diluent-affected sand and soil on site and then using it a backfill for a cleanup project area. The process includes injecting contaminated sand or soil with bacterial that will then eat away the oil, according to Garcia.

Once treated, the clean soil would be used as backfill to create a new dune that would then be vegetated.

But Garcia said the idea of treating the sand on site and using it as backfill in the Guadalupe Dunes is raising the hackles of some because final treatment levels for the material haven't been established.

Because the Guadalupe Dunes is an ecologically sensitive area, not many are embracing the oil company's preferred remediation method.

"There's been a lot of reluctance to do that because of the environmentally sensitive area out here," Garcia said, adding that several alternatives will be examined in the SEIR.

He also said the treatment could still possibly be done, just away from the wetlands to cut down on any environmental damage or degradation the process may entail/

The area where the excavated sand is presently being stored is a dry, paved area one-quarter of a mile inland and away from the wetlands. Drainage is also contained.

The SEIR will also examine trucking the contaminated material off site to a solid waste facility, such as the Santa Maria Landfill.

"That would be a win-win situation," Garcia said. "It gets rid of the risk on site, and it also helps with the closure plan (at the landfill)."

The SEIR will also look at treating the sand through thermal desorption, where the affected material is treated with heat to vaporize the hydrocarbons.

Unocal will pay for the SEIR, which Garcia said will likely cost between $500,000 and $700,000.

The project's original environmental impact report that was certified by the county in 1998 cost Unocal more than $1 million. That document evaluated and determine ed mitigation measures for remedial actions, including excavation of diluent plumes and treatment methods for the excavated material.

Sacramento Bee: April 27, 2003
Guadalupe Dunes - Dunes’ spills focus of cleanup
Stuart Leavenworth

On the surface, the dunes that dominate this stark and beautiful landscape remain as majestic as when Cecil B. DeMille filmed “The Ten Commandments” here in 1923.

Venture across the Guadalupe Dunes in southern San Luis Obispo County and you’ll find frog-filled marshes, nesting grounds for endangered shorebirds and the rarest flowering plants in California.

But looks can be deceiving. Under the surface, the dunes hide a major oil-industry disaster. Starting in the 1950s, the oil giant Unocal carelessly leaked up to 18 million gallons of petroleum under this sensitive landscape, the largest oil spill in California’s history.

To many, the Guadalupe spill typifies everything that is wrong with fossil fuels. To others, it typifies everything right with California’s coastal protection laws, the strongest in the nation.

Fined $44 million and threatened with jail time, Unocal officials have been working to clean up the 2,700-acre site since 1994. The have ripped out pipelines that once scarred the landscape, replanted vegetation and excavated 360,000 cubic yards of contaminated sand.

Even Unocal’s harshest critics can’t help but marvel. “The transformation of the Guadalupe Dunes is nothing less than miraculous,” says Mark Massara, a Sierra Club lawyer who once hounded the company over its spills.

Unocal’s troubles started soon after it purchased the Guadalupe oil field in the 1950’s. Engineers built 145 miles of pipelines across the dunes to carry a diesel-like substance, known as diluent, to help pump the thick crude out of the earth. Over the years, the pipelines rusted and became buried in the shifting sands, where they sprang leaks in at least 90 places.

By the late 1980s, surfers were complaining about a mysterious sheen in the nearby ocean, and sea lions and seals started washing up dead. Unocal initially denied any problems, but then, acting on a tip, state fish and game officers raided the company’s offices in 1992, carting away 20 boxes of records.

Those records showed Unocal officials had long known about the spills, which by then had spread so far underground they were seeping into the Pacific Ocean and the nearby Santa Maria River.

Environmentalists wanted jail time for the Unocal officials. Instead, the company got probation and paid $44 million in fines and damages to
the state.

Six state and federal agencies now oversee Unocal’s cleanup. Instead of pumping oil at Guadalupe, a staff of 20 Unocal biologists and engineers work on the cleanup there, headed by an environmental specialist named Gonzalo Garcia.

Lanky and affable, Garcia has a daunting task – to simultaneously restore the environment and repair Unocal’s public image.

His team has stanched the worst of the underground spills. It also is testing ways of detoxifying a mountain of excavated soil that was dug from the beach and other sites.

“What makes this tricky is this is one of the most sensitive ecological sites in the state,” says Garcia. Excavating everything, he says, would effectively destroy the dunes everyone wants to save.

Over the long run, Unocal officials hope that natural microbes and man-made cleanup will remove and break down the subsurface contamination, and prevent any exposure to the area’s 300 species of wildlife.

Garcia – who wears a Unocal sweat shirt that reads “Concluding our activities in a responsible way” – says the healing process will take a
long time.

“I tell people, ‘Don’t trust us, watch us,’” he said. “Watch what we do.”

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Sierra Club California Coastwatcher: August 2002
Guadalupe Oil Field, a study in contrast
Mark Massara

Looking out across 2,700-acres of some of the finest dune habitat in the world you would never know tens of millions of gallons of oil lays just beneath the surface. A couple of weeks ago Unocal Oil Company announced that it had purchased the underlying land rights to its leasehold at Guadalupe Dunes in San Luis Obispo County. Guadalupe Dunes is the place where Unocal operated hundreds of oil derricks and hundreds of miles of pipelines for decades, and where they managed to spill upwards of a hundred million gallons of oil. During the early and mid-1990's the site was the subject of lawsuits, fines and massive excavation and cleanup efforts along the ocean, adjacent to the Santa Maria River and in the sand dunes. Millions of gallons of oil have been recovered and removed from the site. Millions more remain trapped and are being addressed in ongoing cleanup efforts and a subsequent environmental analysis.

What is staggering is the abundance of wildlife, rare and endangered plants, coastal resources and archeology sites. Guadalupe's 2,700-acres, which will now be permanently protected (Unocal plans to pass title to the property to a governmental agency or nonprofit organization following completion of cleanup efforts), are part of the much larger 20,000-acre Guadalupe-Nipomo Dune Complex. More than 280 plant and 320 wildlife species (excluding fish and invertebrates) have been identified in the area. Rare plants such as Blochman's Leafy Daisy, Sand Plant, Beach, Spectacle-Pod, Surf Thistle, Dunedelion, La Graciosa Thistle, Dune Mint, Suffrutescent Wallflower and Giant Coreopsis are found in abundance in the dunes. Exotics invasives are generally not present and those that are, like iceplant, are being removed. Teams of biologists are using local seed banks to establish dune nurseries from which thousands more of these rare plants will be established. Other biologists are monitoring large populations of California Red-Legged Frogs, Western Snowy Plovers, Silvery Legless Lizards, Tidewater Goby, California Brown Pelican and dozens of other species. Numerous wetlands and freshwater lakes throughout the dunes support a large population of dune deer. Brown bears and mountain lions come from inland along the Santa Maria River and from the south across Pt. Sal.

The transformation of Guadalupe Dunes from California's largest coastal oil spill to unparalleled environmental dune habitat is nothing less than miraculous. Yet it isn't happening without tremendous expense and effort. The legacy of Guadalupe is that people can have a positive impact on nature, and we owe an obligation to carefully clean up the messes we have made. It is also amazing quickly nature can re-establish itself given the opportunity.

For more information see www.guaddunes.com

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Santa Barbara News Press: July 14, 2002
UNOCAL BUYS GUADALUPE OIL FIELD -Polluted site to be nature preserve
David Sneed

Unocal Corp. has purchased the ecologically important but polluted Guadalupe oil field.

The oil company announced the purchase of the 2,704-acre site in the southwestern corner of San Luis Obispo County on Friday from the Leroy Family Trust. The price was not revealed.

The acquisition means that the parcel will be forever preserved, said Gonzalo Garcia, Unocal project manager at the site.

Under a settlement reached in the late 1990s, Unocal agreed to try to buy the site—a small portion is in the northern Santa Barbara County – and give up development rights when the purchase was complete.


“This purchase will enable us to dedicate a sitewide conservation easement over the property.”

The easement prohibits any kind of development or further oil extraction and limits grazing to activities that help habitat restoration. Unocal is allowed to continue its cleanup activities at the site.

Conservationists hailed the purchase as an important step in preserving the scarce and fragile Guadalupe-Nipomo dunes ecosystem. Property to the north and south of the oil field has already been preserved.

“I think in many ways it (the oil field) is one of the finest pieces of dune habitat we have, “ said Liz Scott-Graham with the Dunes Center in Guadalupe. “A lot of the vegetation is in really good shape.”

The conservation easement will be held by a public agency or nonprofit group approved by San Luis Obispo County and the State Coastal Commission.
The oil field remains heavily polluted, and public access is limited to beach areas, where cleanup work has already been completed.

For more than 50 years, Unocal leased the oil field where it pumped heavy Santa Maria crude oil from deep underground. A kerosene-like substance called diluent was used to thin the gooey oil as it was pumped out of the ground. Between 8.5 and 20 million gallons of the substance leaked into the field and settled in the sand in huge underground pools.

In 1998, Unocal agreed to pay $43.8 million in penalties for the pollution it caused at the oil field.

It also agreed to develop ways to clean up the site without destroying its scarce habitat for endangered species such as the red-legged frog and snowy plovers.

The oil company developed a bioremediation program in which polluted sand from near the Santa Maria River was dug up, and the diluent was allowed to naturally decompose.

However, this method, failed to clean up the sand to the point it could be used as backfill.
Cleanup work was stopped a year ago, and county planners are having a supplemental environmental report written that will outline other options for cleaning up the sand.

Those include hauling it by truck or rail to a disposal site, injecting the sand in a water slurry back into the underground oil formation and washing or burning the sand to remove pollution.

The supplemental environmental report is due next summer.

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The Tribune: December 14, 2001
Man-made dunes credited with successful Plover Breeding season
TPR Staff

GUADALUPE – While few snowy plover chicks survived in the Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area, Plovers experienced the most successful breeding season at Unocal’s former Guadalupe Oil Field since monitoring began there eight years ago.

The March to September breeding season brought the most nests and the highest hatch rate, according to monitors who located a total of 62 snowy plover nests.

Of those nests, 35 hatched for a hatch rate of 58 percent. Twenty-five nests failed and two had unknown outcomes.

Researchers studying the threatened Western snowy plover say the results indicate efforts to create nesting habitat for the small bird are succeeding.

Man-made dunes were covered with rice plugs to stabilize the dunes from wind erosion. The primary purpose of the man-made dunes was to restore the site to topography similar to that of a more mature beach dune. But the restored dunes also benefited nesting snowy plovers.

Of the 60 nests within the normal survey area, 13 are located on the restored dunes. Ten of those nests hatched, monitors said. That 77 percent hatch rate is higher than for the survey area in general.

Researchers theorize that the combination of greater cover, reduced wind and improved visibility combined to improve the nesting success of birds choosing to place their eggs there.

“We are thrilled that our efforts to restore their breeding environment has proved to be such a success,” said Gonzalo Garcia, Unocal project manager. “It appears the snowy plovers have adjusted well to the restoration of the beach.”

Monitors approved by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service survey a one-mile stretch of dunes north of the Santa Maria River. When plovers are located, their numbers, age, sex and location are recorded. The nests are checked regularly to determine whether the nest hatched successfully, and if not, an attempt is made to determine the cause of nest failure.

The scientific name for the Western snowy plover is Charadrius alexandrinus nivosus. The small bird is a federally threatened species and California species of special concern.

The plover is a small, compact bird, colored a pale tan-gray with a white breast and belly. The plover breeds at more that 28 sites on the Pacific Coast of the United States. The most common breeding sites are along coastal lagoons and beaches.

More information on the Guadalupe Restoration Project and the Western snowy plover is available at the Web site www.guaddunes.com

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The Tribune: September 3, 2000
A haven for wildlife
First wildlife preserve on the Central Coast

Guadalupe—Call it an island of tranquility in a sea of controversy.

Sandwiched between the Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area and the Guadalupe oil field sits the nation's newest wildlife refuge and the first one on the Central Coast.

The Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes National Wildlife Refuge is 2,553 acres of shifting sand and rolling coastal scrub land. The refuge was born Aug. 1 when The Nature Conservancy donated what has historically been known as the Mobile Coastal Preserve to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The refuge is one of 500 across America.

"It's just a stunning area to explore," said Chris Barr, 33, the refuge's manager. "Every time you come out here, you are going to see something you haven't seen before."

On a recent morning, Barr hiked out to his new domain. As he trudged along the sandy trails of the state's Oso Flaco Lake Natural Area to reach the refuge, the buzz of motorcycles and dune buggies could be heard to the north.

The use of the beach and dunes of the state park by off-road vehicles is a source of much controversy for the Parks Department. Barr won't have that problem—no cars are allowed in the refuge.

To the south, Unocal Corp. is in the beginning phases of cleaning up one of the nation's worst petroleum contamination sites. Barr won't have that problem either—his agency made sure none of the pollution extended into the refuge before it acquired the land.

Instead, the refuge will serve as a haven for scarce coastal plants and animals as well as outdoor enthusiasts who like to get away from trails and campgrounds and experience nature at its most elemental.

On paper, the refuge covers 8,330 acres, but only the former Mobile Coastal Preserve is actually owned and managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Other adjacent properties, such as the oil field, are included within the refuge boundary in order to give the service the ability to easily acquire them should their owners want to sell or donate the land.

As Barr reached the ocean, he turned south and splashed across Oso Flaco Creek. Before him stretched the refuge - an expanse of low, tan-colored dunes covered with splotches of hardy shrubs.

Reasons for the preserve were everywhere.

Large flocks of gulls and brown pelicans rested by the mouth of the creek. Farther along the beach, clusters of tiny sanderlings scurried along the surf line, and long-billed curlews took flight, screeching in protest at the uncommon human intrusion.

One of the main purposes of the refuge is to provide habitat for the threatened western snowy plover. Ten nesting pairs of the tiny birds were observed on the refuge this summer, Barr said. Least terns and peregrine falcons also forage on the refuge.

Surf fishing is the most common human activity on the refuge. Hikers, bird watchers, photographers and botanists are also infrequent visitors.

After watching dolphins feed offshore, Barr headed inland. Away from the beach, the sand is hard-packed and sculpted by the wind.

Unlike the OHV areas to the north, vegetation crowns many of the dunes and extends along their slopes. Pockets of wetlands, inhabited by willows and threatened red-legged frogs as well as endangered Gambel's watercress and marsh sandwort, are scattered among the dunes.

Soon, the refuge's main problem becomes evident. Many of the plants that grow in the refuge are imports from Europe and Africa and threaten to overwhelm the native species. (Some of the imports were planted by ranchers for forage for cattle; others grew from seeds that blew from plants brought by homeowners for their gardens).

European beach grass is encroaching into the refuge from the sea, blown inland by prevailing onshore breezes. Veldt grass is spreading from the inland side.

Finding a way to stop and, if possible, reverse this encroachment will be Barr's biggest challenge. This brings the refuge manager to one of his favorite topics - "partnering," or cooperating with other agencies and groups to achieve common goals.

He hopes to work with groups such as the Land Conservancy of San Luis Obispo County to remove invasive weeds without damaging the fragile ecosystems of the refuge. Unocal is another resource.

The company is required to remove all non-native plants from the oil field as part of the cleanup and will be experimenting with innovative ways to accomplish that order. Barr hopes the refuge can benefit from that research.

Barr's first partnering was with The Nature Conservancy. In 1997, the group decided to find an agency that could own and manage its preserve in the dunes. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was a natural choice.

"Chris Barr and the Fish and Wildlife Service will do a much better job protecting the resources out there," said Kara Smith, project manager with The Nature Conservancy.

Barr, a Cal Poly graduate, was working at the Salinas River National Wildlife Refuge at the time and was excited about the prospect of establishing a refuge on the Central Coast. He wanted to be the new manager.

"I'm there," he vowed to himself.

Since becoming manager, Barr has worked with state and county parks departments to share scarce resources.

"I'm a one-man show," he explained.

One of his most important partnerships is with the Dunes Center, a nonprofit environmental and educational organization. Refuge headquarters are next to the center's new offices in downtown Guadalupe.

Karen Wood, Dunes Center executive director, said she is pleased the refuge has been established.

"The refuge brings with it a lot of expertise," she said. "It will help us implement our research library, which will be housed in the refuge's office space."

Farmers whose fields surround the refuge are another group Barr is trying to help. Hikers sometimes trespass on farmland to reach the refuge, and Barr, who works armed and has law-enforcement authority, is warning them to respect private property boundaries.

Barr has also been working with civic and business leaders in Guadalupe. All are hoping the refuge will pump some much-needed tourist dollars into the town's economy.

"This is where we need to go with the community," said Guadalupe Mayor Sam Arca. "We need to move more toward this area of ecotourism."

The refuge should put Guadalupe on ecotourism maps. Some nature enthusiasts try to visit all of the nation's 520 wildlife refuges to get stamps in their Blue Duck Passports, a collector's book so named because the blue silhouette of a duck in flight is one of the main features of the Fish and Wildlife Service logo.

Arca's only concern is that the refuge's beach might be closed to protect nesting plovers, as was done at some public beaches on Vandenberg Air Force Base.

"I really hope they don't close that beach," Arca said. "What good is the nature and beauty if you can't go out and enjoy it?"

That's not likely to happen, Barr said. The remote location of the refuge and the relatively small number of plovers mean the birds can be protected without limiting access.

"It's a very manageable area," Barr said.

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The Tribune: July 7, 2000
Cal Poly cleans up
Corporation gives $5.6M to fund site reclamation work

Unocal Corporation gave Cal Poly $5.6 million Thursday to finance research and technology for restoring petroleum-contaminated sites, particularly its own Guadalupe oil field.

The donation is one of the largest the university has ever received, Cal Poly President Warren Baker said during a morning ceremony on campus that drew more than 100 Cal Poly and Unocal executives.

The money will go into the College of Science and Mathematics Environmental Biotechnology Institute and enhance the existing partnership between the college and the oil company, Baker said.

EBI is working with Unocal to find ways to clean up the massive petroleum spill at the oil field. Between 8.5 and 20 million gallons of petroleum products have been spilled at the Guadalupe site, but there is no known way to clean up the contamination without destroying the fragile coastal dune habitat at the oil field.

During Thursday's ceremony, Baker thanked Unocal for already involving Poly faculty and students in research to clean up the dunes. Baker also commended the company for its remediation work in Avila Beach, where the whole town is being rebuilt.

Because of its research assistance potential, said Baker, "this gift provides a lasting legacy ... that will have worldwide applications."

Unocal helped launch the EBI with a $1.3 million grant in 1996. The latest donation will include $2 million for construction of EBI facilities in the university's anticipated new science and mathematics building, $1.5 million over three years to continue research at the Guadalupe field, and $1 million to endow a chair, occupied by microbiology professor Raul Cano, in environmental sciences.

"He's internationally recognized as a scientist and dedicated educator," Baker said of Cano, who is currently directing a team of faculty and students conducting research in Unocal's Guadalupe oil field to improve technology called bioremediation. "He's a model for us all."

Cano, a specialist in paleobiology and molecular evolution, gained notice in 1993 when he discovered and extracted Dinosaur-Age DNA from insects preserved in amber.

He was grateful for the Unocal gift. "When I left Cuba in 1962," said Cano, "I never expected my life was going to be this good."

Mark Smith, Unocal's vice president for real estate, remediation services and mining operations, acknowledged County Supervisor Chairwoman Peg Pinard "who keeps us in line and doing the right thing."

Pinard said just before the ceremony that she thinks the donation is a good way for Unocal to help apologize for all the problems the companys leaks have caused.

"I think Unocal is saying, if we're going to be such a big presence in the community, let's make it a positive one. "

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The Tribune: July 7, 2000
Unocal boosts Poly program
New era of research expected in bioremediation of 0il-tainted soil

A $5.6 million cash donation from Unocal Corp. will likely usher a new era of research for Cal Poly's Environmental Biotechnology Institute, according to renowned local scientist Raul Cano.

A Cal Poly microbiology professor who directs the EBI, Cano said the Unocal gift announced Thursday will broaden the diversity of the students and faculty who take part in the institute's studies to include researchers from outside of Poly.

"There are many institutes in the CSU (California State University), but this is the only one focusing on environmental biotechnology," Cano said. "We're not at the point of bringing students in from elsewhere, but now we can start reaching out to other campuses, for students and faculty.

"(Without this donation) I can say we would have done the same thing, but it would have taken us 15 or 20 more years."

The EBI is a group of Poly faculty and staff who research a variety of biotechnology issues, but focus largely on bioremediation, the science of using natural processes to break down environmental contaminants.

The donation is just the latest stage of a more than three-year relationship between the Cal Poly think tank and petroleum giant Unocal.

The EBI began in 1996 as the brainchild of Cano, who had gained prior national attention for reviving 40 million-year-old bacteria extracted from honeybees fossilized in amber and analyzing tissue in a 5,300-year-old human corpse. His DNA research was credited for inspiring the book and movie "Jurassic Park."

Unocal helped launch the institute with a $1.3 million grant.

The institute, a collaborative research project aimed at developing"environmentally sensitive" technology to aid petroleum companies in restoring contaminated sites, is part of Cal Poly's College of Science and Mathematics.

Cano said the idea for the institute was to provide a means for Cal Poly scientists to conduct research and to get Poly students in on the act.

"We wanted to go beyond the idea of a normal institute and make sure we enhanced the Cal Poly student research experience," Cano said. "At the time, microbiology was shifting focus from medical to environmental. So we focused primarily on bioremediation as a mechanism for removing contamination."

Almost immediately, EBI organizers hooked up with Unocal in what Cano said was a mutually desirable pairing.

"In 1996, the institute was newly-founded," Cano said. "We knew Unocal was undergoing some difficulties (at its Guadalupe Oil Field), and we felt we had the expertise. We gave them a proposal, they modified it to fit their research needs, and we started doing research in November 1996."

Since then, EBI scientists have looked at the organisms involved in bioremediation at the Guadalupe Oil Field and have tried to stimulate the process.

"I think its been one of the best things about the project," said Gonzalo Garcia, who oversees Unocal's excavation of contaminated sand at the Guadalupe field.

"They have offered a very high level of scientific excellence and highly-skilled people looking at the problems here and finding better ways of doing the cleanup. We started with just baby steps, but the relationship has gone beyond the microbial stuff."

Students and faculty are now researching endangered plants and developing brand new techniques in replanting the contaminated area with native plants that also destroy hydrocarbons in the groundwater.

"It's a truly perfect situation, win-win for both sides," Garcia said. "The third winner is the community."

The EBI has studied outside of Guadalupe, too, Cano said. The institute is almost finished mapping the genome of a common bacteria that may open up new human health benefits. As well, EBI scientists are researching occurrences and possible prevention of food poisoning in dairy products.

But Cano said the institute is proud of the positive impacts it has facilitated in Guadalupe and he looks forward to continued environmental improvement there and more hands-on research opportunities for students.

"We have more than 40 students involved right now, and those are more or less permanent fixtures," Cano said. "We have others who come on board just for a specific project, then move on. We like to get them early, though, so they start their senior projects as sophomores.

"That is what distinguishes our institute from many others. The students are an integral part of the discovery process."

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The Tribune: March 31, 2000
Plight of the snowy plover
Resource Managers Close Public Beaches to Stem Further Losses

A tiny shore bird is starting to cast a very long shadow along beaches of the Central Coast. The western snowy plover, already listed as threatened on the federal endangered species list, suffered a significant population drop during the 1997 El Nino weather event and its populations have not recovered.

"The plovers are clearly in trouble," said Mark Massara with the Sierra Club's coastal program. "Without immediate and dramatic measures, the bird may be extinct within a few years."

In response, the Air Force recently announced that more than 11 miles of beaches at Vandenberg Air force Base would be closed during spring and summer; including Ocean Beach, which is popular with Lompoc residents. The base had an estimated 220 adult birds before El Niño, but only 78 were counted last year, said Lee Ann Naue, a bilogist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Ventura. "If we are going to help these species recover, we are going to have to have some beaches that are completely closed," she said. The agency says that further beach closures are unlikely, but other resources managers are taking some unusual steps to protect the bird and help it recover.

The state parks department is drawing up a habitat conservation plan to outline ways to manage the plovers and other endangered species on park land in the county, said Joe Mette, parks superintendent.

"We don't have any plans for beach closures, but we've got some tough sledding ahead to get the plovers back to the numbers they once were," he said. At the Guadalupe oil field, independent researchers are experimenting with creating habitat that is beneficial to the plovers. The program has met with some success, said Tom Jordan, the project's ecological coordinator.

Artificial sand dunes have been created and driftwood and other beach debris has been scattered over a stretch of beach that was cleaned up for oil pollution over the winter. Ten nesting pairs of the birds are active at the oil field and two have already laid eggs. "At least we are sure they are coming back," Jordan said.

The snowy plover is a tiny bird that could fit in the palm of a person's hand. They are found along beaches and the shores of coastal lakes and nest from March through September.

Their nesting and rearing habits make them particularly vulnerable to human disturbance. They lay their eggs in tiny depressions scraped in the sand near the beach vegetation line. They are easily driven off of their nests by people or pets walking by or vehicles driven on the beach.

A variety of wild animals and pets kill the birds and eat their eggs. Additionally, hatchlings the size of a quarter must scurry to the edge of the surf to feed within hours of being born.

"You could step on one and not even know it," Naue said.

The beaches at Vandenberg were targeted for closure because they are federal property where the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has greater authority. Also, the Air Force Base contains the largest block of plover habitat and is the most likely place the bird could stage a comeback, Naue said.

San Luis Obispo County has six beaches that are considered crucial plover habitat. Pismo Beach, Guadalupe Dunes and the sand spit at Morro Bay are considered the best habitat with San Carpoforo Creek near Ragged Point and Toro Creek and Morro Strand Beach north of Morro Bay having lesser quality habitat.

Most of these beaches are managed by the state Parks Department. Rangers have developed a system for protecting the plovers, Mette said.

During the nesting season spotters are sent out to find nesting Birds. Once a nest is discovered, an orange enclosure fence is erected around it.

Theis is effective at keeping humans and pets out but can alert wild predators, such as coyotes, fox and raccoons, that the nests are there, Mette said.

"Everybody is sort of wading into this without knowing exactly how its going to turn out," he said.

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Santa Maria Times: March 17, 2000
A couple of pills for West Valley ills
Eric Firpo Column

Call it cosmetic surgery for the hidden scars of an extraordinary landscape, but know it's also a cure for the disease.

The eco-experiment that's soon to get going in the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes isn't happening anywhere else in the world, but it hopes to create a benchmark that might be used everywhere, at least everywhere there's underground oil contamination.

The dunes have plenty of that, though not as much as it once did, thanks to Unocal's ongoing efforts to dig up subterranean pools of oil that once leaked from a vest web of the company's buried pipelines.

Trouble is, you can't dig all the pollution up.

So how do you remove what's left behind, the stuff floating atop the water table? And how do you put once-pristine sand dunes back together again after its been ripped apart by heavy equipment? As it turns out, the answer to both questions might be the same. You plant trees such as willows and cottonwoods, plants with roots that reach the water table, "phyreatophytes" to the botanists of the world, vegetation that actually eats up underground oil contamination.

Due to the brain trust at Cal Poly's biological sciences department, we now have a theoretical good thing with a long name, "phytoremediation." The use of plants such as willows to get rid of oil production.

If the trees work their magic, it could prove to be a cheap, low-tech solution to a modern by-product of the industrial revolution.

It'll be a few years before it can be called a success of a failure.

This fall, professors at Cal Poly will be handed as many as nine acres in the dunes for a science experiment that's got a whole department excited.

"If this works, it will set standards for what will occur elsewhere in the world," said Poly professor and department chair V.L. Holland.