Coast Guard, Town Battle Over Historic Lighthouse Lens

SAN FRANCISCO (June 28) -- The U.S. Coast Guard would seem to have plenty to worry about with the cleanup of the BP oil spill. But it has gotten itself into another sticky mess in the little Northern California town of Ferndale, where a local artist and a historic lighthouse lens are proving almost as difficult to deal with as the gulf crude.

The conflict centers on a 142-year-old lens that the Coast Guard loaned the town more than six decades ago and now wants back. The controversy has undermined local trust in the agency, which has long been respected for its rescue missions along the coast.

The Fresnel lens has been on display in a replica lighthouse building at the entry to the Humboldt County Fairgrounds since 1949. The Coast Guard contends that the lens is not adequately protected or displayed and needs restoration. It plans to remove the lens by the end of July; where it goes after that remains unclear.

Community leaders argue that the so-called first-order lens, which once illuminated the coast from the nearby Cape Mendocino Lighthouse, is an important part of the region's history.

So important that for the past 25 days, local artist Jack Mays has been protesting the planned removal by chaining himself to the fairgrounds' building that houses the lens. His supporters have created a Facebook page, Save Our Lens. Mays, 71, says he is not leaving until the Coast Guard promises to return the lens to Ferndale once it is restored.

"They are like Big Brother coming and pushing us little guys around," Mays told AOL News. "I am fully prepared to be chained to the lighthouse and be arrested. At some point they are going to have to physically take me away."

Fresnel lenses were once commonly used in lighthouses around the United States. But after World War II, most of the lenses were replaced by automated lights, and some of the historic lenses were lost or destroyed.

A first-order lens is one of the largest of the Fresnel lenses, measuring 12 feet tall and 6 feet wide. It has hundreds of glass prisms and weighs 2 tons. When operating, it could be seen from 20 miles out at sea.

The Coast Guard wants to ensure the lens receives proper care.

"Our concern here is for a valuable, unique artifact, and we are obligated to take care of it," Coast Guard Deputy Chief of Public Affairs Jordan St. John told AOL News. "It belongs to the federal government."

Community leaders say the Cape Mendocino lens would have been discarded but for the efforts of the Ferndale community, which rescued the lens in 1948, painstakingly restored it and built the lighthouse replica building to display it.

"The fact is, they threw it away and we saved it," Mays said.

St. John acknowledged: "Sixty years ago, the Coast Guard wasn't as concerned about its artifacts as it should have been."

Today, community groups including the city of Ferndale, the Ferndale Chamber of Commerce, the Humboldt County Fair Association and the Ferndale Enterprise newspaper are seeking to save the lens for the community once again.

They have formed the Shining Light Fund to raise the estimated $350,000 needed to build a museum-quality structure that meets the Coast Guard's specifications. The city, which has a population of just 1,400, pledged $10,000 last year, and local congressman Mike Thompson is seeking federal funding for the project.

The Coast Guard's demand that Ferndale raise money to save the lens comes as the community faces a tough economic recovery. The Humboldt Creamery, one of Ferndale's largest companies and a frequent donor to charitable causes, went bankrupt last year. The company's former chief executive pleaded guilty in May to loan fraud.

The Shining Light Fund has asked the Coast Guard to give it five years to obtain funding and build the structure before it revokes the loan of the lens.

But the Coast Guard has denied Ferndale's request for more time, saying that it can no longer wait for the community to act. It contends that the community has been dragging its feet for years despite the Coast Guard's longstanding requirement that it build a new home for the lens.

"The solution we tried to work out for almost five years in Ferndale is to have it placed in an appropriate structure," St. John said. "A fundraising project would have been really helpful if they had started it five years ago when we first said the lens was not in an appropriate setting."

But the Coast Guard's own document detailing the timeline of events tells a different story and calls into question Coast Guard math. The document indicates that the Coast Guard first requested improvements two years ago, not five.

The timeline confirms that Thompson first wrote the Coast Guard in 2001, saying the lens needed restoration and that the community was willing to take on the project if ownership of the lens was transferred to the fair association.

The Coast Guard didn't send anyone to inspect the lens until December 2006, the document shows.

Then it took another year and a half -- until June 2008 -- for the Coast Guard to write the fairgrounds about "deficiencies" in the care and display of the lens, according to the Coast Guard document.

Now, the Coast Guard's contention that Ferndale has acted too slowly seems hypocritical to many in Ferndale. In a recent column in the Ferndale Enterprise, local writer Wendy Lestina expressed the community's frustration:

"What's peculiar about this issue is that the Coast Guard has made it a power struggle: We're big and powerful and part of Homeland Security, and you're a bunch of arrogant yokels who think you're special and are about to find out you're not," she wrote. "The lens is only a pawn in the struggle; the Coast Guard, perhaps feeling unsuccessful in its other ventures, like keeping terrorists out of our ports and oil out of our water, has decided to ace this one."

Some also suspect that the agency has a plan for the lens that it is not sharing with the public.

At least two other groups have requested the Cape Mendocino lens, one in Humboldt County and the other in Petaluma, 225 miles to the south, according to Caroline Titus, editor and publisher of the Enterprise.

St. John said the Coast Guard would like to keep the lens near the Cape Mendocino lighthouse but acknowledged the agency could send it to a more distant location if a more suitable home is offered.

"The goal here would be to keep it as close to the original lighthouse as possible," he said. "They are high on the list to get it if they have the proper facility. We want to keep it in Humboldt County."

Leaders of the fundraising drive say that without a commitment to return the lens to Ferndale, it will be difficult to raise money for a new structure.

The Coast Guard has contracted with a lens specialist to come to Ferndale and pack up the lens for shipment, a procedure that could take weeks. The contract's deadline for removing the lens is July 28, although St. John said that could be postponed.

In the meantime, Mays remains stationed at the entrance to the county fairgrounds. He said he will do all he can to keep the lens in Ferndale. He has fastened himself to the building with a 60-foot-long chain, which allows him to stay in a trailer parked nearby. He is undergoing treatment for cancer, and when he temporarily leaves his post, other lens supporters fill in for him.

He spends much of his time painting pictures of the replica lighthouse and the lens, but he believes a confrontation is coming soon.

"I will chain myself to the door and not let anybody past," he vowed. "I don't want to go to jail, but I will."