The whales and their pups are running north these days. But, sadly, we don’t know how much longer that stirring sight will bless our beloved beaches, given the very real threat of the BHP Billiton’s proposed LNG 14-story, toxic-spewing offshore facility. This threat to Malibu’s way of life, marine life, and our property values is deadly serious, as those of us who attended the EIR impact hearing last week at the high school witnessed.
What we saw there was an insidious attempt by BHP to pack the hearing and dominate the speaker podium with a parade of carpetbaggers, chicken hawks and chicken swabs (an old military label for mercenary merchant marines). You could identify them from their self-serving statements and suits, which to me seemed cut from the same cloth worn by those who gave us the Iraq, Bhopal, Chernobyl, the Valdez disasters. No doubt hovering over the assemblage like a vulture was a Haliburton hack.
It is obvious that Malibu needs to mount a concerted effort to stop this greed-engorged proposal. At last, the City Council has an issue everyone can get behind. But I fear that compelling environmental arguments alone will not be enough, and that we must exercise our individual and collective political wills to make this a hot button, issue, and insist that anyone running for governor pledge to stomp on this project if it somehow slithers through the bureaucracy.
Let us hope we do not have to resort to civil obedience or, worse, protracted legal action.
Sam Hall Kaplan