Summerland
From the viewpoint in the parking lot of QAD on Ortega Hill in Summerland, it is easy to think about petromodernity at this point. On the one side, we are standing next to a software company, we see the Amazon label on hats, packages, and a multitude of cars parked next to you, while we’re also hearing the noise coming from the passing cars on the 101. On the other hand, the impressive shoreline view gives way to multiple oil platforms that force the viewer to think about how cars are produced, ridden, parked and filled with products.
Established in 1889 by a group of Spiritualists, the town of Summerland soon became known to outsiders as “spookville,” due to the seances that its founder Henry Lafayette Williams would hold at the town’s central temple. Shortly after its founding, Summerland experienced an economic boom with the discovery of natural gas in 1890, followed by the discovery of oil a few years later. These discoveries, however, would quickly transform Summerland from a Spiritualist mecca into a testing ground for oil companies to experiment with new extraction techniques. Between 1895 and 1906, over 412 wells were drilled in the Summerland area.
In 1898, Summerland became home to the first offshore oil well in the world, the Treadwell Wharf, a pier stretching 1300 feet into the ocean, upon which wells were sunk into the sea floor. A monument stands by the seashore dedicated to this initial burst of accidental ingenuity and the role it played in shaping global oil extraction.
In October 2017, Governor Brown signed Senate Bill 44 into law, committing up to $2 million annually to remediate the ‘orphan’ or ‘legacy’ wells on the coast of California for the next ten years. The Summerland case was often cited as an exemplary illustration for the orphanage process: oil companies built wells and wharves during the late 19th and early 20th century, later ended their operation, and then removed visible infrastructure, giving way to other economic enterprises in the region. However, many oil wells have evidence leakage since then and it has become the responsibility of the California state to ‘re-abandon’ the wells. This process brings to the forefront the discussion about what is natural seepage and what is the result of human processes, as was the case of the Summerland Beckel Onshore Well in 2011.
For what was once intended to be a haven of rest, Summerland today is an incredibly loud place. The town is dominated by the 101 freeway which cuts between Summerland proper and the ocean. Visually and auditorily, there is no escape from the massive stream of concrete and asphalt and the zooming cacophony of cars that flow in both directions. From the perspective of a Summerlander, it seems difficult to imagine a worse place to put a freeway. In a sense, oil culture has inflicted two wounds on the town. The first was the gouging of physical and metaphorical holes into what was once a religious mecca, transforming a pristine landscape into an industrial oil extraction site. The second involved carving a massive scar down it’s center, cutting the town off from the ocean and its natural beauty.
MORE on Summerland:
- Aerial Photographs of Summerland: A series of aerial photographs of Summerland from 1938, 1969, 1994, and 2017.
- Southern Santa Barbara County and its Resources: An excerpt from a souvenir guide published in 1900 by the Summerland Advance-Courier.
- Summerland Legacy Well Leakage Testimony: Testimony on the Summerland legacy well leakage before the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors, April 5, 2011.
- Community Tar Ball Observation Report Form: A project of Santa Barbara Channelkeeper.
