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In this interview, Noozhawk spoke with Betsy Weber, Assistant Director at Environmental Defense Center, to learn more about how the nonprofit uses legal action to protect our coastal environment.
Let’s celebrate the spirit of giving and take action today!
Environmental Defense Center
Question: What is the name of your nonprofit, and what is its mission?
Answer: The Environmental Defense Center works to defend nature and advance environmental justice on California’s Central Coast through advocacy and legal action. Since 1977, we have empowered community-based organizations and fought to advance environmental protection. Our program areas include Climate & Energy, Ocean, Land & Water, and Environmental Justice.
Q: What motivated the creation of your nonprofit?
A: The Environmental Defense Center (EDC) was founded in 1977, born as a response to the devastating 1969 Santa Barbara Oil Spill. The horrific images and painfully slow recovery led to the passage of some of our most important and enduring environmental laws at the state and federal levels – laws including the Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, National Environmental Policy Act, and the California Coastal Act.
Community leaders in Santa Barbara realized that in order for the promise of these new laws to be fulfilled, there needed to be an organization on the ground, utilizing these new tools to ensure nothing like this could ever happen again here.
In 1977, the doors were opened at EDC, providing the people of the south-Central Coast of California an environmental watchdog, an advocate, and a legal voice to counter the power of oil companies and other corporate polluters.
Almost 50 years later, EDC still advocates, educates, and provides free and low-cost legal services to community groups working to protect the environment throughout Ventura, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo Counties, having represented more than 140 organizations to date. There are numerous well-known national environmental law firms, but EDC is unique due to our regional focus and our history of local successes, for example a ban on offshore fracking in California waters, protection of iconic wild places like the Gaviota Coast and Carpinteria Bluffs, and defeat of countless fossil fuel developments including a new dirty power plant on the Oxnard shore.
Q: How do you allocate your funding to support your mission?
A: EDC is primarily funded through generous donations from individuals and foundations. The organization does not accept any government funding. The generosity of community members allows EDC to fulfill our mandate is to provide free and low-cost legal services to fellow nonprofit organizations, accessing which cases we take based on the importance to our communities and environment, not on a client’s ability to pay fees.
There are a number of cases for which we currently have either inadequate or no designated funding. EDC is currently fundraising to support our work leading the fight to stop Sable Offshore, a new fly-by-night Texas-based company, from restarting three offshore platforms, two onshore processing facilities, and the same corroded pipeline that ruptured and spilled more than 450,000 gallons of oil into our ocean nearly a decade ago.
If this project is approved, another oil spill will be all but inevitable. This is one of the most urgent threats to our communities and environment, and we are fighting on many levels to ensure the history of oil spills isn’t repeated.
Q: What types of events or programs do you run to engage your community and raise funds?
A: EDC is much more than a traditional law firm. In addition to our legal case work, EDC also conducts policy, advocacy, and analysis, leads coalitions to ensure nonprofit partners working in common cause have access to relevant information and shared innovative strategies.
We also undertake numerous projects which are not strictly legal work, but match EDC’s expertise and experience, and benefit our community health, wildlife, and environment. EDC selects cases and projects that preserve open space, agricultural land, and wildlife, protect marine resources in the Santa Barbara Channel and beyond, ensure healthy rivers and creeks that that support key species including the Southern California Steelhead, prevent dangerous fossil fuel projects, and help advance the transition to a clean energy future.
EDC also holds a number of community events throughout the year, including our annual fundraiser, Green & Blue, every June. This event plays a critical role in helping ensure EDC can continue our work by raising about 15% of EDC’s annual operating budget every year, and brings together more than 500 community members, environmentalists, elected officials, and others working together to defend the Central Coast.
We also host a popular summer happy hour series in our historic courtyard in downtown Santa Barbara. Our TGIF! events feature live music from local bands and drinks from local brewers and wine makers, and highlight the critical work of our nonprofit partners in the region.
Q: How is your team structured? Have there been any major changes in your operations since you started?
A: Our staff is small but mighty, consisting of five attorneys, two environmental analysts, and a four-member administrative team that handles fundraising, community outreach, and communication. We also hire legal fellows and interns whose dedication and passion are an important part of the EDC team.
EDC recently completed a five-year Strategic Plan which was the result of an in-depth process with the board and staff to re-imagine and clarify our purpose and plan for the future. Over the next five years, we will continue our historic mission to protect the environment of the Central Coast, grow our environmental justice work and our diverse network of partners, and expand our impact on the climate crisis.
Q: How can people get involved with your nonprofit or volunteer?
A: The best way to stay engaged with the Environmental Defense Center is to sign up for our email list on our website. This means you will be sent monthly emails that discuss what EDC is currently working on, volunteer opportunities, and action alerts on immediate issues where you can lend your voice.
Also, as a nonprofit organization, EDC depends and thrives on the support of our volunteers. From helping execute events such as our annual fundraiser, Green & Blue, and our TGIF happy hour series, to assisting with preparation and execution of critical outreach and fundraising mailings, to participating in creek clean-ups, our volunteers make it happen! We are always looking for helping hands. To sign up to be a volunteer, please fill out the form on our website: https://www.environmentaldefensecenter.org/volunteer/.
Q: What sets your nonprofit apart from similar organizations?
A: EDC is the only nonprofit public interest environmental law firm between Los Angeles and San Francisco. For nearly five decades, EDC has represented more than 140 community groups, providing them with free and low-cost legal services and helping to empower them with the tools necessary to fulfill their specific mission.
This model has allowed us to represent organizations big and small, local and national, and to work on a broad range of issues from preserving open spaces and public access, to protecting our communities’ clean air and water, fighting irresponsible fossil fuel projects and transitioning to clean renewable energy, to preserving critical habitat and the wildlife that depends on them.
It is an honor to be able to work on such a large range of issues and represent so many of our fellow dedicated and accomplished nonprofit partners at the local and national level.
Q: How do you share your nonprofit’s impact and updates with the public?
A: EDC works hard to diversify our outreach efforts, utilizing a variety of print and digital media pieces to engage our communities in our work. In addition to earned media on our cases, printed newsletters, fundraising appeals, brochures, and digital forms including e-newsletters, social media, and our website, EDC is dedicated to being persistent face and voice in the community.
We often hold public forums, webinars, lectures, community outreach events, and fundraisers. We also speak on panels, at rallies and in college classes, and participate in as many of the events hosted by our partner groups and clients as possible. We hope you will follow us on social media and through our e-newsletter so we can connect at an upcoming event.
Q: What makes your organization trustworthy for donors, and are there other ways people can support your cause beyond donations?
A: EDC is honored to have many donors who have trusted and supported us year after year. EDC has a proven track record of success and has demonstrated that we are here for the long-haul, serving as a community watchdog and never backing down. We have fought and won many victories that have led to our region being this incredibly biodiverse, beautiful region.
Every donation helps to ensure we can stay strong in our work to protect this special place where we all live, work, and explore. Additionally, we have strong support from the community for our advocacy efforts at the local, state, and federal levels.
Through our email alerts, newsletters, and social media, you will learn about the many opportunities to join us by speaking up at a hearing or sending in comments on critical issues affecting our communities. By supporting EDC, you are helping us continue our important work to protect the Earth’s climate and nature on the Central Coast.
Q: Can you highlight one immediate goal and one long-term vision your nonprofit aims to achieve in the next year?
A: Our long-term goal is to continue fighting to protect our region for another 50 years. That includes advancing decommissioning of offshore oil and gas in the Channel and helping the transition to clean energy – including development of offshore wind energy that does the least harm to wildlife and habitats.
It includes our original mission to protect the Central Coast from dangerous fossil fuel projects and expanding our focus on cases and projects to address the climate crisis. And it includes working towards justice for communities that have been impacted the most by pollution and other environmental threats.
In the short term, we are focused on stopping the restart of ExxonMobil’s old drilling and processing operation on the Gaviota Coast, including the same corroded pipeline that broke in 2015 and caused one of the worst oil spills in California history.
In addition, our work to build and deepen relationships with BIPOC-led and Environmental Justice organizations across the tri-county area remains a focal point in our work today and well into the future.
Click here to support Environmental Defense Center’s mission to defend nature and advance environmental justice on California’s Central Coast through advocacy and legal action.
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