Gaviota Coastal Conservancy given $25,000

The momentum of a local grassroots group aiming to preserve the undeveloped Gaviota coast picked up earlier this week with a $25,000 gift from the Goleta Land Trust.

The donation to the Gaviota Coastal Conservancy will help attract federal sponsorship and matching funds for a feasibility study of options for preserving the rural Gaviota coast west of Goleta from urban development.

The Goleta land trust's contribution is a significant boon to the group's cause, said Bob Keats, conservancy president.

The trust's gift will be combined with a 1998 county grant of $25,000. The conservancy is seeking another $25,000 grant from the private Packard Foundation to amass a total of $75,000.

That sum is about half of the estimated cost of the study, Keats said. He hopes the locally raised $75,000 will convince federal officials that there's enough local interest to justify a matching Congressional appropriation, and study sponsorship by a federal agency.``We want to provide Congress with as much evidence as possible that there's local support for this,'' Keats said.

The preservation effort has the support of Rep. Lois Capps. A spokeswoman said Wednesday that Capps has made the cause a priority, and is lobbying ``everybody she can'' in Washington D.C. to further the conservancy's plans.