Once again, State Parks is being a bad neighbor to Oceano and a poor steward of the coastal environment. It’s rushing through plans to hold multi-day music festivals at Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area with inadequate consideration of the impacts to the local community and wildlife. Tickets are on sale for the first festival, which is scheduled to start days after the public comment period ends on the environmental study, so there is no opportunity for meaningful input and the process is a sham. Increased traffic, emergency response times, and litter in Oceano have been ignored.
State Parks seems to think attendees will magically arrive at the festival site, so it didn’t discuss driving through Arroyo Grande Creek in the rainy season. What are the impacts to water quality and protected species of fish and frogs in the creek? Will the festival be called off if the creek is too high to drive through safely? Will migrating whales be harmed by 90 decibel music directed out to sea for 72 hours straight?
These are questions that demand answers. There should be no festival permit until State Parks addresses all the issues and mitigates the impacts of Burning Man on the beach.
Cynthia Replogle
president
Oceano Beach Community Association
This article appears in Autumn Arts Annual 2018.
The Parks director at the Oceano Dunes is a corrupt little man. I had to work with him once and he tried to cheat me. Fortunately, the State has a process for going around people like him to get the small business owners paid.