Ocean Park Proposal Becomes Partisan Issue : Sumner Calls for Protection of Orange County Coast; Badham ‘Interested’ but More Reserved

The concept is unusual: a 650-square-mile “national ocean park” along the Orange County coast composed of wind and waves and seaweed but not a foot of land.

Laguna Beach Councilman Robert F. Gentry proposed it in May as a way to protect Orange County’s coastal waters forever from oil drilling.

On Thursday, Gentry’s environmental proposal became a partisan political issue.

At a seaside press conference in Coronal del Mar, Democratic congressional candidate Bruce W. Sumner not only called for creation of such a park, from Seal Beach to San Clemente and across the water to Catalina Island, but promised that his first priority, if elected in November, would be to sponsor a bill to make it happen.

“This would be the first of its kind,” Sumner said. “This would be an area in which there would be no offshore oil drilling or rigs” although commercial fishermen and recreational boaters still would be able to use the ocean as before.

‘National Treasure’

When people go to a beach community like Laguna Beach, “the ocean is the resource people go to see, not just the art community. This is the real national treasure,” Sumner said.

Sumner’s Republican opponent in the 40th Congressional District, five-term Rep. Robert E. Badham (R-Newport Beach) said he was interested in Gentry’s idea for a national ocean park but took a more reserved approach.

Badham said his staff had discussed the idea with Gentry.

“We told Bob Gentry we would be more than happy to pursue that, with Rep. (Ron) Packard (R-Oceanside) when support was generated by the coastal and inland communities,” Badham said. The congressman noted that he also would like to hear support from Los Angeles County supervisors, since Catalina waters would be part of the proposed park.

Gentry’s idea “would require a great deal of support before such legislation could be seriously considered,” Badham said, adding that “it’s too late to introduce this year anyway.”

Surf’s Out

A spokesman from the National Park Service was even less impressed. “Surf’s out on the Park Service opinion at the moment,” said spokesman George Berklacy with a laugh. “There must be any number of reasons why you couldn’t turn any part of the ocean, Atlantic or Pacific, into a park.”

Berklacy added, “National parks historically have been created to preserve something, not to prevent something.”

Sumner, however, called the creation of the park important “in the form of a statement” that the area should be reserved for commercial fishing, boating and tourism and not oil drilling.

The designation of an area as a national park “enhances its use as a recreation area” and its tourism appeal, Sumner said.

Asked how the designation would enhance the use of these waters, Sumner said he could not be specific.

Sumner also was vague as to how such waters would be patrolled, whether by Coast Guard or by park rangers. “That would be worked out,” he said. “The real question is not the details--it’s the concept.”

“You’d have to be a leader in Congress to get it to happen,” Sumner added. Alluding to his accomplishments as a Republican state assemblyman from 1957 to 1962, Sumner said, “Maybe the same type of person that established UC Irvine or established California State University at Fullerton or established the Dana Point Boat Harbor . . . could get it to happen.”