SAN DIEGO (KGTV) \u2014 The California Coastal Commission approved a proposal this week allowing SeaWorld to conduct drone light shows over Mission Bay.<\/p>\n
The decision comes more than a year after San Diego Coastkeeper and CERF filed a lawsuit against the theme park over pollution from its traditional fireworks displays.<\/p>\n
Under the approved proposal, SeaWorld can conduct up to 110 aerial light shows over the next year and will start as early as next month.<\/p>\n
Phillip Musegaas of San Diego Coastkeeper called the decision a win for the environment. He believes the lawsuit influenced the park’s move to propose the drone light shows.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe launched an investigation. We actually sent a diver into the water around the fireworks barge that’s operated by SeaWorld,\u201d Musegaas told ABC 10News last year in June.<\/p>\n
Musegaas said dive teams are still finding debris left behind from decades of firework shows dating back to 1968.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe wiring, the cardboard and the plastics that are used in commercial fireworks\u2026 a lot of that debris was falling directly into the bay and polluting the bay,\u201d Musegaas said.<\/p>\n
While the approval does not guarantee fireworks are going away permanently, it signals a possible shift in bringing a possible resolution to the table.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just don’t think fireworks shows over Mission Bay are sustainable and environmentally acceptable,\u201d Musegaas said.<\/p>\n
As for the ongoing lawsuit, SeaWorld declined to comment. <\/p>\n
\u201cOur goal always when we file a suit is to stop the pollution,\u201d Musegaas said. \u201cIt’s not to make money for Coastkeeper, it’s not to get our name out there. It’s to address an environmental harm.\u201c<\/p>\n
SeaWorld will be required to monitor 20% of drone shows each month. The park must suspend the entertainment option if the shows exceed light and noise thresholds or if a bird is struck by a drone. The drones are equipped with anti-crash technology to minimize bird strikes and collisions with other drones.<\/p>\n
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN DIEGO (KGTV) \u2014 The California Coastal Commission approved a proposal this week allowing SeaWorld to conduct drone…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":276427,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[119555,119556,119557,4035,1846,1103,18913,74,76,75,29373],"class_list":{"0":"post-276426","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-california-coastal-commision","9":"tag-drone-show","10":"tag-enviornment","11":"tag-fireworks","12":"tag-lawsuit","13":"tag-mission-bay","14":"tag-pollution","15":"tag-san-diego","16":"tag-san-diego-headlines","17":"tag-san-diego-news","18":"tag-seaworld"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}