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Hybrid Plan Emerges From Marine Debate: Task Force Works on How Best to Protect Near-Shore Environment

Posted on: Thursday, 16 March 2006, 09:00 CST

By Kevin Howe, The Monterey County Herald, Calif.

Mar. 16--A last-minute plan cobbled together Wednesday morning emerged as the marginally preferred recommendation for protecting the Central Coast's near-shore marine environment.

The recommendation came after two days of hearings in Seaside by the state Marine Life Protection Act Blue Ribbon Task Force.

After a year of discussion and debate, the task force committee went into Tuesday's session with five possible plans under consideration. After that eight-hour hearing, the panel sent its scientific staff members into a huddle to come up with a plan that answered as many of the competing groups' concerns as possible.

That plan, with modifications, got a 4-2 endorsement as the preferred alternative to be sent to the state Fish and Game Commission for review. The commission is trying to establish protected marine areas along the coast from Santa Cruz to Santa Barbara counties.

Fish and Game will receive three plans: Package 1, supported by commercial fishermen; Package 2, the most environmentally restrictive of the three; and Package 3R, an amalgam of a plan submitted last month in Pacific Grove, which was followed by Package S, a similar plan that differed in details about reserve and conservation area boundaries, and by a much more highly environmentally restrictive Package AC.

Among the task force panel members, support for Package 2 was voiced by former San Diego Mayor Susan Golding and state Coastal Commissioner Meg Caldwell.

Supporters of Package 3R were: former Assemblyman and Sacramento Mayor Phillip Isenberg; Catherine Reheis-Boyd, chief operating officer and chief of staff for the Western States Petroleum Association; former state Resources Agency Secretary and environmental lawyer Douglas P. Wheeler; and William Anderson, president of Westrec Marina Management, Inc.

Reheis-Boyd sided with the majority after panelists agreed to accept some marine conservation and reserve area boundaries to accommodate kelp harvesting and fishing off the Central Coast.

Protected areas|

The 1999 Marine Life Protection Act mandates establishment of a network of protected areas to be scientifically designed, created and managed to protect the diversity and abundance of marine life and the integrity of marine ecosystems.

The act envisions a combination of reserves where no fish or other resources may be taken, conservation areas with regulated fishing and parks that would allow recreational fishing. The goal is to protect habitat and ecosystems, conserve biological diversity, provide a sanctuary for marine life, enhance recreational and educational opportunities and provide scientific reference points to assist resource management decisions.

On Tuesday, the task force panel heard public testimony, with commercial and sport fishermen, environmentalists, marine scientists, scuba divers, kayakers and waterfront business owners vying for amendments to suit their visions of how the coastal waters should be managed.

All of the packages submitted to the task force met the goals of the 1999 act in varying degrees, said Mary Gleason of the task force's science advisory team.

Fishers said they needed the freer hand that Package 1 would grant them, contending that the fishing industry is already effectively self-regulated and that closing off prime fishing areas as no-take reserves would drive fishing vessels to crowd into, and overfish, the remaining areas.

They also took issue with as aspect of Package S that would "square off" area boundaries to make compliance more enforceable, rather than set the boundaries at the 60-foot depth mark that varies along the coast. Gleason said loss of prime fishing areas would be an "unintended consequence" of that boundary change.

A lot of the issues being debated, she said, "are not scientifically driven."

City jurisdiction|

The Pacific Grove Tidepool Coalition has protested what it considers an usurpation of city jurisdiction over the Pacific Grove Marine Garden Fish Refuge by naming it a state marine protected area.

The three plans call for varying state controls between the Coast Guard breakwater and Lovers Point, with Package 3R allowing some kelp harvesting for the two commercial abalone farms in Monterey Bay, as well as fishing and scientific specimen collection in various areas.

That package also allows continued fishing for squid, sardines and anchovies, where Package 2 would further restrict "forage" fishing for these small species that are eaten by larger tuna, salmon and other species.

The plethora of packages and their accompanying boundary maps struck Isenberg as "looking like nothing so much as legislative reapportionment" in their complex attempts to satisfy contending interests and constituencies.

He also advised fellow panelists against getting involved in squabbles that have arisen between scuba divers and pier-fishing anglers over whether one or the other should be barred from areas to avoid accidental diver hookings. It may be a safety issue, he said, but it's not a marine protection issue.

After further discussion Wednesday morning, Isenberg suggested, and the panel approved, that its scientific staff meet and look at reconciling the two closest plans, Package 3 and Package S, and Package 3R was the result.

The lone advocate for Package AC, environmental activist David Dilworth, told the panel that they should move forward on the strongest environmental protection plan to the state as a preferred alternative.

Isenberg said the details of the three forwarded "packages" will undoubtedly be revised by the Fish and Game Commission as it makes final plans for coastal marine protection.

The packages all designate protected areas with varying boundaries and regulations off Moro Cojo and Elkhorn sloughs near Moss Landing, the Monterey and Pacific Grove waterfronts, Carmel Bay, Point Sur, Piedras Blancas, San Simeon and Santa Barbara.

montereyherald.com.

Kevin Howe can be reached at 646-4416 or khowe@

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Monterey County Herald, Calif.

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Source: The Monterey County Herald (Monterey, Calif.)

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