Pismo Beach hosts the Clam Festival is this weekend, and Atascadero has Colony Days.

Clamming used to be a major event over 40 years ago, but at some point the clammers and resurgent otters began to outnumber the clams. The Chumash and the dunites could live off the clams on the beach but that era was coming to a close.

Extra low tides in January and June brought out clam hunters out in droves. This is from a front-page story from June 11, 1964:

OCEANO – C’mon in! The water’s cold and the clamming is great!
That seems to be the word today along the South County coast where more than 10,000 men, women and children braved the water along the 10 miles from Pismo Pier to the Oso Flaco area below Oceano.
Raymond W. Westberg, Pismo Beach State Park superintendent, said that a car count of persons was made at the three entrances to the beach at Pismo Beach, Grand Avenue and the Oceano ramp.
Bill Lovern, bait shop operator at the Oceano ramp, said there were 2,000 to 2,5000 clammers in his area at sun-up.
“They really slaughtered the clams,” he said.

A year-and-a-half later the Focus section ran a story under the headline “How long can clam population last?” on January 8, 1966.

Extra state fish and game wardens were brought in from other parts of the state to handle the huge crowds combing the area’s beaches for clams. Last January, when more than 150,000 persons swarmed to the county’s beaches, only five wardens were available for duty.

So many clammers invaded county beaches last January that the area supply of fishing licenses was depleted and wardens were unable to enforce licensing laws.
But this isn’t the case this week, and the public is reminded that all licenses expired last week.
Pacific Telephone Co. has added extra operators to handle the many calls from this county. Last year the local office was swamped with calls and had difficulty handling them all. Extra pay telephones have been set up near the beaches to ease some of the load.
The effect on the clam population itself is devastating. Fish and Game officials last year said that more than a million clams were taken from the county’s beaches and that clamming would “probably never fully recover” from the onslaught.

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June 30, 1979
It was San Luis Obispo County’s Woodstock only with less mud, sex, drugs or rock and roll but more politics. They estimated 20,000 would attend.
Over 30,000 people jammed Highway 1 for a combination music festival and anti-nuclear rally.
It was held on the Army airstrip behind Cuesta College almost three months to the day of the partial meltdown at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania. With the prospect of a new nuclear power plant opening soon at Diablo Canyon tensions were high.
The seven hour rally featured Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., actor Mike Farrell of M*A*S*H, Daniel Ellsburg, County Supervisor Richard J. Krejsa, Friends of the Earth founder David Brower and U.C. Berkley professor John Gofman.
The singers included Bonnie Raitt, Peter Yarrow, Jesse Colin Young, Jackson Browne and Graham Nash.
Quoting the lede of the page 1 story by Carl Neiburger:

Before Edmund G. Brown Jr. was allowed to walk on state at Saturday’s anti-nuclear rally at Camp San Luis Obispo, the Democratic Governor had to assure rally organizers that he would do everything in his power to stop the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant.
The five-member Abalone Alliance ‘rally collective’ had spend about an hour listening to what the governor wanted to say, discussing it with him and then- in Brown’s absence- coming to a “consensus” that he should be allowed to address the audience.
Brown told the crowd of about 30,000 people, “I’ve just decided to join your effort to deny a license to the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. I personally intend to pursue every avenue of appeal if the Nuclear Regulatory Commission ignores the will of this community.”

He got a minute long standing ovation before and after the speech.
Some members of the alliance, a confederation of anti nuclear groups throughout the state, were less-than-enthusiastic.

Spokeswoman Marcy Darnovsky of Berkley quit, saying, “The Abalone Alliance was not formed to be a platform for candidates for elective office.”

Tom Hayden wasn’t allowed to speak because he hadn’t been invited to the rally and hadn’t taken a firm stand against the plant according to another Abalone Alliance spokeswoman.
At this point it was estimated that PG&E had $1.6 billion invested in the plant.
By 1982 Brown was out of office, Unit 1 opened in November 1984 and Unit 2 in August 1985.
Bonnie Raitt is returning to the county for a concert on October 5 with Cambria singer songwriter Jude Johnstone opening.
Aerial photos by Wayne Nicholls, rally photos by Tony Hertz

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Visiting Cayucos area site of test drilling by state engineers are three members of the Morro Bay-Cayucos Joint Atomic-Seawater Reclamation Committee (left to right) Joe Giannini, Jack Lindemann and chairman Duval Williams.

January 9, 1966

The Atomic Age was on the march. Three years earlier Cal Poly had installed a micro wattage demonstration reactor. In nine months PG&E would announce their choice of Diablo Canyon as the location for their multi-unit nuclear plant.

Why not a nuclear fired electric plant in Cayucos?

Governor Pat Brown was in the midst of an ambitious construction cycle to bring water to southern California. President Lyndon Johnson was spending money on his Great Society programs. In a year one would be out of office and the other would be sinking in the mire of the Vietnam War but for a brief time there was a nuclear-fueled gleam in north coast booster’s eyes.

Quoting from the uncredited article:

CAYUCOS — Test drilling began this week near here to determine if this area is a suitable site for an atomic power facility.

Under direction of a state geologist, Cliff Farrell, corings were being taken to see how earthquake-proof and stable a site north of Cayucos is.

Cayucos is one of five California sites under consideration for a $100 million joint California-federal nuclear powered electrical station.

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Howard Martin, Fish and Game Warden stood in San Luis Obispo Creek today where it flows through the downtown heart of the city pointing to the trash and garbage which makes the stream an “open sewer.”

October 6, 1966

Today San Luis Creek is a downtown gem for folks looking for a little slice of nature in the middle of the city.
In 1966 the creek walking experience was closer to a visit to a third world country than a trip to Disneyland.

State Game Warden Howard Martin was up against generations of bad habits when he began contacting property owners along San Luis Creek.
For decades the San Luis Creek had been paved over, ignored and treated as a dump.

The first day story on October 10, 1966 quotes a Fish and Game report for the Regional Water Quality Control Board.

“The stream is being used as an open sewer. There are many pipes which sporadically spew untreated waste of unknown quality into the stream.”
They counted 89 pipes culverts and drains dumping untreated water downtown.
“All test fish exposed to the San Luis Obispo sewage treatment plant waste died violently within 10 minutes.”
Today the treated water is clean enough to use to irrigate playing fields. If Los Osos is interested, there is a history of the San Luis Obispo sewer being written here.

The second day story was headlined, “The creek polluters say we’ve always done it that way.”
Some shops in town had trap doors to make it easier to dump garbage into the creek.
At least it never got as bad as Cleveland, in 1969 the Cuyahoga River caught fire.
Environmental awareness was a growing issue in the 1960’s.

Creek Day is coming up all over the county.  CONFIRM the date and time…the information in the link looks like it is from last year.

(A now abandoned Week of Welcome activity used to be the Sewer Tour. A WOW group would hold hands and walk the creek from Safeway to the Mission with few or no flashlights. The tunnel would erupt with screams when a group stepped off into an unanticipated pool or tripped on an obstruction. Some traditions are worth forgetting.)

Photos by Jim Vestal

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People have had big ideas for the Oceano Dunes for a long time.

The Chumash Indians were the last sustained civilization on the dunes, living on the abundant clams and fish.

In the early 1900’s real estate speculator’s maps carved the beach up into lots. On July 4, 1907 a celebration was held at a pavilion called La Grande Beach.

An advertisement in the Telegram trumpeted the event on July 1, 1907.

Within 8 years the development was abandoned.

Apparently folks found the access through sand and across the flood prone Arroyo Grande Creek difficult.

Even today drivers loose trucks during the rainy season in the creek, imagine what it was like before Lopez Dam tamed the worst of the flooding.

The dunites lived in wind scoured huts built out of scavenged lumber in the early to mid 1900’s. Norm Hammond wrote a book on the subject.

By the 1960’s the dunes were owned by a patchwork of corporations and the state.

PG&E was giving serious consideration to building a nuclear power plant in the dunes.
The story by Pat Keeble says:

“Conservationists and would-be industrializers are engaged in a tug-o’-war over use of the dunes.”

A previous post documents the united efforts of off road advocates and the Sierra Club to keep access to the dunes open to recreational users.

Check out the state of art graphic, a picture plastered with white tape and typewritten labels.

This Sunday, The Tribune begins a three-part series on the Oceano Dunes that has been more than 6 months in the making.

The stories will present the various sides of the debate over whether the state should continue to allow vehicle traffic on the Dunes, in light of the county’s recent consideration of selling Dunes land to the state.

***

Hey, if you have read this far chances are you are a fan of Photos from the Vault.

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Word on the street is that sponsorship will bring  you _____(number) % more ____________(adjective) ____________(noun), the admiration of the free world and envy of the rest.

The Vault reaches a regional as well as national audience so if you are interested send me an e-mail and I’ll forward the information to our advertising reps.

dmiddlecamp[at]thetribunenews.com

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Captain Roy J. Bud Newton of the Lynann with a whale gun.

The Lynann was a whaler, converted from a Navy submarine chaser.

January 28, 1966

It wouldn’t happen today.

Using logic that made sense in the 1960’s researchers were killing seals to save them.

Working out of Morro Bay, a trio of marine biologists and the five-man crew of the Lynnann were under a 70-day contract to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Their mission was to capture and examine up to 500 seals off the coast of California.

Today capture means tranquilize, perhaps install a radio collar, take measurements and blood samples. Then it had a different meaning. Quoting from the article:

“Although killing seals is prohibited by federal law, the Lynann, a 136-foot craft, is operating under special orders from a department of the federal government.”
…

“The biologists are particularly concerned with determining the age of the seal and their reproduction systems. Ages of the seals can best be determined by examination of the teeth biologists said.”
…

“Although armed with a whale gun – the ship is normally used to capture whales – the crew has found that shotguns are the best method to kill the seals.”

No wonder seals, to this day, swim away when you tell them, “We’re from the government, and we’re here to help.”

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September 20, 1972

These photos are from a set of aerial photos made for development stories throughout the county. The early 1970’s brought a wave of development to the area as Cal Poly expanded and workers flooded in to build a power plant.

Construction was underway at the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant. At least 6 cranes are busy as PG&E

worked to bring the plant online. One containment dome is taking shape and the turbine building is about half covered.

It’s the most expensive building in the county, sorry Hearst Castle. The county and San Luis Coastal School district both got budget boosts from the increased property tax.

The view of Los Osos shows Baywood in the foreground and new construction in the heights above town. There is no sewer being constructed however.

The view of Pismo Beach shows new empty mobile home parks and grazing land east of Highway 101.

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Images from the March 10 edition of the Telegram-Tribune, volunteers are washing oil from the feathers of a grebe hoping he will be one of the 25% who survive. Another photo shows oil muck being scraped from a Santa Barbara beach. Photos were by David Ranns

January 29, 1969

Offshore oil drilling has been touted recently as the solution to high oil prices. Some political statements sound a lot like an old Exxon commercial. The United States currently consumes over 25% of the world oil output.

The Central Coast has strong reasons to have a love-hate relationship with oil.

In the early 1900’s the oil industry brought the area some of the first good paying non-farm jobs. No one ploughs with a mule anymore or reads by whale oil lamps.

In the 1960’s cartoon tigers made our cars run better and uniformed attendants wiped down our windows.

Somewhere along the way the perception oil companies soured.

One could argue the galvanizing moment was the Santa Barbara oil disaster of 1969.

Six miles off of Summerland, 3500 feet below the ocean floor natural gas pressure was pushing under platform A.

Union Oil, author of the biggest spills in San Luis Obispo County (Avila Beach, Guadalupe Dunes), was the owner of the drilling platform.

Investigation revealed Union Oil had been cutting corners. The oil giant got permission from the U.S. Geological Survey to use casing pipe thinner than federal and California standards. The more strict state standards only applied inside the three-mile coastal zone.

When drilling mud fell below the safety margin, the pipe ruptured and broke an east-west fault in five places releasing oil and gas for 11 days. Later fault breaks would continue the spill.

Sea birds, seals, dolphins and beaches were coated with black goo.

Quoting Telegram-Tribune staff writer Gilbert Moore in an article from February 15, 1969:

“It churned and bubbled to the surface through a sea floor fissure for 11 days, turning the channel into a vast oil slick.
It coated miles of peerless beach with sludgy slime.
It captured loons, sea scooters, grebes-hundreds of them-in a cocoon of death.”

In addition to the environmental damage, it was a public relations disaster for Union Oil (now Unocal). Driving distance from a media capital of the United States, Los Angeles television crews and photographers transmitted images across the world of dying birds and volunteers throwing straw on the beach to mop up the oil.

Fred L. Hartley, president of Union Oil offered this reaction, “I am amazed at the publicity for the loss of a few birds.”

The disaster united ecology organizations, and brought many into the political mainstream. Earth Day would be founded in the wake of the event.

The Environmental Protection Agency was created December 2, 1970. I somehow doubt Union Oil sent them a cake.

Oil and environment have been such a large part of the history of the area I have added a categories to the blog for organizing future posts.

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