California Coastal Commission vs. the Fourth of July

The California Coastal Commission is notorious for making life difficult along the otherwise spectacular Pacific Ocean.But its recent decision to block a fireworks display for the Fourth of July in Long Beach — on the 250th anniversary of U.S.

independence, no less — is a new low.As The California Post reported, the “Big Bang on the Bay” has been a popular event in Long Beach for 15 years. The Coastal Commission wants the organizers to use drones, instead of pyrotechnics — at five times the price.Their reason: fireworks cause pollution, apparently.Long Beach is a port city, where cargo ships blow smoke and leak oil on a daily basis.

Those impacts dwarf the small amounts of ash, smoke, and other materials that are left over after a quarter of an hour of fireworks.It’s not as if these are being released every day, or for long.The Coastal Commission says that it told organizers to stop using fireworks after 2025. Really? So the grand American tradition of Fourth of July fireworks could be celebrated on the nation’s 249th anniversary, but not on its 250th? No wonder the Coastal Commission has a reputation for ruining fun.

It causes more misery in California than the pollution it claims to worry about.The Coastal Commission was created in 1972, through a ballot initiative — not the first or last time voters have been convinced to back an idea that is good in theory but terrible in practice.The purpose of the Coastal Commission was to stop private developers from blocking access to the beach.Now the Coastal Commission itself is preventing people from enjoying the shore.The Coastal Commission also blocks useful initiatives like desalination.

Though it ultimately approved a plant near Dana Point, it blocked a desalination plant in Huntington Beach in 2022.There was nothing wrong with the latter’s proposal to use salt water from the open ocean.

One suspects there was politics at play in the vote, given Huntington Beach’s conservative streak....