Better Together

SYNOPSIS

The 1969 Union Oil blowout mobilized the Santa Barbara community to fight for the environment, inspiring the creation of many nonprofit organizations, Earth Day, the Environmental Protection Agency and the first interdisciplinary Environmental Studies program. The legacy of the oil spill continues to inform this community, which keeps coming together, providing local solutions to global environmental problems, exemplified when over 3,000 volunteers joined the Santa Barbara Bucket Brigade to dig mud from homes after the deadly 2018 debris flow.