cleaning up oil pollution, beautifying Lookout Park, and honoring frontline workers

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A third-generation Californian, Leslie, currently resides in Carpinteria but called Summerland home for 30 years. The award-winning writer assists clients sell fine art, antiques and collectibles at auction houses around the globe. She can be reached at LeslieAWestbrook@gmail.com or www.auctionliaison.com

A Great Cap to an Otherwise Strange Year

Cinematographer Harry Rabin monitors the environmental fixes at Summerland Beach, pointing to one of the two oil wells he helped get capped (Photo credit: Leslie A. Westbrook)

The Morehart Group

Mitch Morehart Beverly Palmer Susan Pate Paige Marshall 805.452.7985 themorehartgroup.com themorehartgroup@compass.com DRE 01130349 | 01319565 | 00828316 My great Aunt Betty laughed when I bought my house in Summerland in the early 1980s. She told me that her husband, my great uncle Heywood, used to work on those wells when they lived • linens • frames • dinnerware • childrens • books • womens in Summerland in the 1930s. Little did • linens • frames • dinnerware • childrens • books • womens • holiday • linens • frames • dinnerware • childrens • books • womens • holiday 1137 Coast Village Road, Montecito, CA 805.845.3300 LEGACY SALE 40%* OFF *Selected Items*Sale Begins December 26th • holiday • linens • frames • dinnerware • childrens • books • womens • holiday I know at the time that the very oil wells he worked on had been improperly capped with old mattresses, telephone poles, and god-knows-what-all and they would fail decades later. All had been completely abandoned; some were not even sealed or capped at all! Fast forward almost 30 years later, when it became apparent that “something was rotten” in Summerland. I contacted Das Williams in July of 2010. He was on the Santa Barbara City Council at the time, but was running for California State Assembly. I invited him to walk the beach with me, promising a hamburger at The Nugget after our walk as an incentive. I knew this beach like the back of my hand and wanted to show him firsthand. Das took the bus down to Summerland. That day, Das didn’t believe me. He agreed there was lots of tar but thought it was normal. He was used to it, he told me, from surfing Santa Barbara waters (Isla Vista, as I recall). And that’s true: there is natural seepage, as we all know. But I stressed to him that as a longtime resident who walked Summerland beach many times a week the stench and tar and slicks polluting our coastline were not normal. Das didn’t know me from Adam, but he checked with others, includ18 MONTECITO JOURNAL “Winter forms our character and brings out our best.” – Tom Allen

Heal the Ocean executive director Hillary Hauser and retired Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson celebrating the oil well capping (Photo credit: Harry Rabin) ing Lee Heller (who backed me up) and Linda Krop of the Environmental Defense Center.

Das was elected that year and took office in 2011. There was a long waiting time for help for the orphaned oil wells, due to the budget crunch in California but in 2016, Das asked then-Governor Jerry Brown for $900,000. Then-State Senator HannahBeth Jackson went even further and got funding for a comprehensive study and later more funds. By then, Hillary Hauser and Heal the Ocean had joined the bandwagon.

“It helped to have local advocacy from the community and from Heal the Ocean,” Das recalled on a Zoom