The waters off of the Palos Verdes Peninsula from Rocky Point, front, looking South, to past Pt. Vincente, top, are coveted by fisherman and environmentalists. (Steve McCrank, Staff Photograph)By Melissa Pamer, Torrance Daily Breeze
10/17/2009
Local fisherman and diver Joe Farlo has created a group called Keep Rocky Point Open in hopes of preventing the waters off Rocky Point in PVE from being turned into no-take zones under the statewide Marine Life Protection Act Initiative. (Scott Varley Staff Photographer)In more than 300 miles of Southern California coastline, the rocky Palos Verdes Peninsula offers the only true headland, jutting forcefully into the Pacific. An island in a past era, the peninsula is now surrounded by some of the richest marine habitat in the state.
On the west side, off an area known as Rocky Point, is a lush kelp forest hosting an underwater paradise of sea life treasured by ocean conservationists.
"Rocky Point is a wonderful, wonderful place. It's got robust biology, and it's very diverse in geography and oceanography," said Tom Ford, executive director of Santa Monica Baykeeper. "I have not found any other area along the mainland coast that is its equal."
The site's traits and plentiful underwater inhabitants have also made it a long-cherished fishing ground.
Now, because of a state law that aims to create underwater parks that would limit or halt the taking of marine life, Rocky Point is at the center of a tug of war between environmental and fishing interests.
The Marine Life Protection Act, passed by the state Legislature in 1999, was designed to create a network of reserves that would shelter and improve ocean ecosystems by setting aside the richest habitat along the state's 1,100-mile coastline.
The legislation is slowly being implemented through a public process that has been wrenching for fishermen, conservationists and for local officials who are worried about the impact to their communities.
"We're dealing with the livelihood of everybody that I love and work with," said Leslie Page, property manager at Redondo Beach Marina, which depends in large part on traffic going to and from Rocky Point.
"This is a socioeconomic travesty to the South Bay, and I still don't think people are listening," she said.
This week, the initiative reaches a turning point as a state panel holds a three-day hearing in Long Beach that will weigh three competing proposals for closures in Southern California: one backed by fishing interests, a second supported by environmentalists, and a third that is an attempt to find middle ground.
The matter goes on to the Fish and Game Commission in December, but many observers feel this meeting is crucial and a large turnout is expected.
The proposals for closures off the Peninsula barely overlap at all. That indicates just how entrenched constituencies are over Rocky Point, one of a handful of areas in a region from Santa Barbara County to the Mexico border that has been so lacking in consensus. Catalina Island has also proved complicated.
"The areas that are most heavily used are almost invariably the most diverse and abundant and the best areas for a marine reserve. That makes it difficult to find cross-interest support - and compromise," said Joe Geever, state policy coordinator for the Surfrider Foundation.
Few have any idea what the future holds for the contested waters around Rocky Point - how much habitat will be preserved and how much fishing ground will be lost.
"We really hope that whatever happens we're still able to come really close to protecting all of those habitats in Palos Verdes," said Charlotte Stevenson, a staff scientist with advocacy group Heal the Bay.
Process is slow-going
After the state failed twice at implementing the Marine Life Protection Act - known as the MLPA - a renewed attempt began in 2004, funded in large part by private foundations.
The California coastline was divided into five regions, with a group of stakeholders in each tasked with drawing and redrawing boundaries of proposed closures over months of meetings.
The five-member Blue Ribbon Task Force, which oversees the process and is convening this week's meetings, makes recommendations for final approval by the Fish and Game Commission.
Two regions are complete: the Central Coast and the North Central Coast. They have each seen about a fifth of their state waters - which extend about 3.5 miles from the coastline - turned into marine protected areas.
The initiative itself remains the subject of criticism and the occasional conspiracy theory by some fishers, who point to studies showing recovery among overfished stocks and question why measures are not being taken to improve water quality as a means to improving ocean health.
Fishermen have also been quick to ask where funding for enforcement will be found in an overburdened state budget. Fish and Game has estimated the cost to be between $9 million and $42 million, depending on the type of protections adopted. Enforcement costs thus far have come from the state's general fund, department officials said.
Gary LaCroix, a former Torrance police lieutenant who captains a charter fishing boat out of Redondo Beach Marina, called the MLPA "a dog-and-pony show."
"I've gotten to the point where I've lost sleep over this, I get so upset about it," he said.
LaCroix has closely scrutinized the initiative since fall 2008, when a group of 64 regional stakeholders from across Southern California began cajoling, bartering and fighting over the boundaries of proposed reserves in the South Coast region.
The process here has proved to be especially fraught with conflict, largely because Southern California is so densely populated and its coastline features one favorite fishing spot after another.
A way of life threatened?
On any given day, the Rocky Point area is dotted with sportfishing boats and smaller recreational vessels. Kayaks and sailboats abound on weekends, not to mention surfers. Commercial lobster boats are regularly present during the now-open season, and huge cargo ships from the nearby ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach can be spotted farther offshore.
"Cattle boats," some captained by men who have fished the same waters for more than 60 years, take dozens of hopeful anglers out of Redondo Beach's King Harbor for a half-day cruise. They return with their catch, and the boats reload. Bars and restaurants that open onto the docks keep busy.
"That's our summertime bread and butter, the Rocky Point area," said Craig Stanton, operations manager at the Redondo Beach Marina.
Stanton and many others worry their way of life, and the millions of dollars of economic activity that goes with it, is under threat.
They are frustrated by an MLPA-commissioned economic study that lumped Redondo Beach in with San Pedro and Long Beach and failed to look at any economic activity beyond the value of the fish caught or the fee paid by passengers aboard large sportfishing boats. Recreational fishing, under those constraints, has no value.
Instead, Redondo Beach fishers plugged data into a model created by the Recreational Marine Research Center at Michigan State University. That showed fishing at Rocky Point generated $17.3 million in economic activity each year, about a third of the total annual activity at King Harbor.
"This will just be a dagger into the marina business," Stanton said of possible closures. "They've already put the dagger in. We're just trying to control the bleeding."
Supporters of marine preserves say nonconsumptive activities - tourism, surfing, diving, photography - will continue and increase if key habitat areas are protected. Spending associated with that kind of oceangoing already far outpaces fishing in California, according to a study from the National Ocean Economic Program.
Of course, that hasn't convinced fishers.
Lobster fisherman Kenny Swanson, who grew up in Redondo Beach and has been fishing out of King Harbor for more than eight years, said fellow commercial lobster harvesters are "very irritated" by the MLPA.
If one of the two more restrictive proposals takes parts of Rocky Point, he said he'd have to leave King Harbor.
"I would either have to quit my business and be stuck with a boat and gear and a bunch of stuff I can't get rid of or move my business and try to squeeze into somewhere I've never fished before and be the odd man out," Swanson said.
Environmental groups say that areas outside of preserves will ultimately see a spillover effect of increased fish stocks, creating new prime fishing grounds. But they acknowledge the immediate effects.
"In the short term, it's a displacement of fishery output. There's no denying that. In the short term, you're pushing fishermen out of where they're accustomed to going," said Surfrider's Geever, who favors a conservation approach.
Meanwhile, the activism of King Harbor-based fishers has galvanized several South Bay cities to take at stand on the MLPA. Fishing groups scored a minor victory recently when Assemblyman Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, agreed to support their proposal.
But others have said they're waiting to see what comes out of the Blue Ribbon Task Force this week.
An ocean `rain forest'
The Palos Verdes Peninsula is one of the few spots in mainland Southern California that offers all the desired habitats on a list drawn up by the MLPA initiative's science advisory team.
Its persistent kelp forests and deep rocky bottom extending well offshore are especially hard to find.
"The greatest diversity in Southern California is in the kelp forest. It's really Southern California's rain forest," said Heal the Bay's Stevenson. "Juveniles seek refuge and it's a nursery. So many species use it early in their life cycle."
The extent of giant kelp forest in the mainland southern part of the state has declined roughly 80 to 90 percent in the last century, said Baykeeper's Ford.
One of the goals of creating no-fishing zones in areas with large kelp forests is to allow populations of lobster and California sheephead to flourish so they can eat sea urchins, a favorite of now-rare sea otters.
Allowed to reproduce unchecked, urchins can consume and devastate kelp beds, creating a desolate ocean floor. With the kelp forest gone or reduced, young fish have fewer areas of refuge in which to mature and hide from predators.
Scientists say they've seen success at marine protected areas created in 2003 in the Channel Islands. The spillover effect has been witnessed, with cattle boats fishing the line of the preserve.
"They're setting up habitats that will seed outside waters to help restore fishing in fishable waters," said Sarah Sikich, a stakeholder and coastal resources director with Heal the Bay. "The intention is to select key areas that will benefit marine life and people, so in the future we're able to continue fishing and diving."
Protected area proposals
Without starting new marine protected areas on the best habitat, it's doubtful they'll show the desired effects, Sikich and other environmentalists say.
That's one of the criticisms of the fishing groups' map, known as Proposal 2, which fails in several ways to meet the MLPA's guidelines but minimizes economic impacts.
The proposal takes in nearly 20 square miles of water south of Rocky Point, beginning just north of Point Vicente and sweeping east to Long Point. An adjacent conservation area allowing some fishing would cover Abalone Cove, ending near an area of sediment from the Portuguese Bend landslide.
Farther east are county wastewater outfalls at White Point, the site of a massive plume of DDT-contaminated sediment that stakeholders were told to avoid.
"Proposal 2 is really the best compromise for everybody," said Joe Farlo, a Torrance anesthesiologist and avid spearfisherman who launched a campaign called Keep Rocky Point Open.
Farlo said he had pursued support from Terranea Resort, which opened recently at Long Point and has promoted itself as environmentally friendly.
"It could be the best area in the South Coast Study Region," he said of Long Point. "A resort hotel with an eco-dive package built in? Rocky Point's got none of that - it's a huge steep cliff and is all residential."
But environmental groups point out that Proposal 2 fails to include sufficient deep rocky bottom and persistent kelp forest habitat.
That was intentional, supporters of Proposal 2 said.
"It's a policy decision. It's a conscious decision not to do that," said Kevin Ketchum, a stakeholder and general manager of California Yacht Marina, which operates three marinas in the South Bay. "The social, cultural and economic impact is so great that it doesn't warrant it."
Flying above the area that fishing groups have proposed for a reserve, it's clear there is less kelp than at Rocky Point. A few days after recent rains, the water still showed pale brown plumes of sediment.
"You can't set aside a parking lot, call it a national park and expect to get excited about it. Nor from a scientific perspective does that work," Baykeeper's Ford said.
At the outset of the MLPA process, Ford submitted a proposal that extended from Point Vicente to the edge of King Harbor. That infuriated some locals, galvanizing their involvement and helping solidify an alignment between commercial and recreational fishers.
Ford said he is reluctantly supporting the map backed by most environmental groups - Proposal 3 - but he would prefer more habitat to be protected.
Proposal 3 would extend northwest from Rocky Point, along the line that demarcates a long-enforced commercial fishing ban in Santa Monica Bay. The southern end of the marine protected area would run close to Long Point and take in half of Abalone Cove.
That accounts for more than 16 square miles of the best habitat, but it also includes waters regularly used by commercial lobster fishermen and half-day sportfishing boats.
The compromise map - Proposal 1 - covers about a mile of shore just north of Rocky Point, then runs south and west to the edge of coast waters, creating a a 17-square-mile triangle shape that may cause enforcement concerns.
The compromise proposal gets most of the best habitat and has a reduced economic impact, but it hasn't made even its drafters particularly happy. Sikich, who was on the team that drew it, is supporting Proposal 3.
Ford said he expects "very entrenched positions" to be restated at this week's meetings and anticipates the task force will tweak the designs instead of picking one.
In the end, it will be worth it, he believes.
"We won't be sitting here as we have for the past decades watching something glorious become less and less and less," Ford said.
Want to go?
What: Blue Ribbon Task Force meetings to choose marine protected areas in Southern California.
Where: Hilton Long Beach, 701 W. Ocean Blvd.
When: 1 p.m. Tuesday, 9 a.m. Wednesday and 9 a.m. Thursday. Public comment will be taken from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. and from 7 to 10 p.m. Wednesday.
10/17/2009
Local fisherman and diver Joe Farlo has created a group called Keep Rocky Point Open in hopes of preventing the waters off Rocky Point in PVE from being turned into no-take zones under the statewide Marine Life Protection Act Initiative. (Scott Varley Staff Photographer)In more than 300 miles of Southern California coastline, the rocky Palos Verdes Peninsula offers the only true headland, jutting forcefully into the Pacific. An island in a past era, the peninsula is now surrounded by some of the richest marine habitat in the state.
On the west side, off an area known as Rocky Point, is a lush kelp forest hosting an underwater paradise of sea life treasured by ocean conservationists.
"Rocky Point is a wonderful, wonderful place. It's got robust biology, and it's very diverse in geography and oceanography," said Tom Ford, executive director of Santa Monica Baykeeper. "I have not found any other area along the mainland coast that is its equal."
The site's traits and plentiful underwater inhabitants have also made it a long-cherished fishing ground.
Now, because of a state law that aims to create underwater parks that would limit or halt the taking of marine life, Rocky Point is at the center of a tug of war between environmental and fishing interests.
The Marine Life Protection Act, passed by the state Legislature in 1999, was designed to create a network of reserves that would shelter and improve ocean ecosystems by setting aside the richest habitat along the state's 1,100-mile coastline.
The legislation is slowly being implemented through a public process that has been wrenching for fishermen, conservationists and for local officials who are worried about the impact to their communities.
"We're dealing with the livelihood of everybody that I love and work with," said Leslie Page, property manager at Redondo Beach Marina, which depends in large part on traffic going to and from Rocky Point.
"This is a socioeconomic travesty to the South Bay, and I still don't think people are listening," she said.
This week, the initiative reaches a turning point as a state panel holds a three-day hearing in Long Beach that will weigh three competing proposals for closures in Southern California: one backed by fishing interests, a second supported by environmentalists, and a third that is an attempt to find middle ground.
The matter goes on to the Fish and Game Commission in December, but many observers feel this meeting is crucial and a large turnout is expected.
The proposals for closures off the Peninsula barely overlap at all. That indicates just how entrenched constituencies are over Rocky Point, one of a handful of areas in a region from Santa Barbara County to the Mexico border that has been so lacking in consensus. Catalina Island has also proved complicated.
"The areas that are most heavily used are almost invariably the most diverse and abundant and the best areas for a marine reserve. That makes it difficult to find cross-interest support - and compromise," said Joe Geever, state policy coordinator for the Surfrider Foundation.
Few have any idea what the future holds for the contested waters around Rocky Point - how much habitat will be preserved and how much fishing ground will be lost.
"We really hope that whatever happens we're still able to come really close to protecting all of those habitats in Palos Verdes," said Charlotte Stevenson, a staff scientist with advocacy group Heal the Bay.
Process is slow-going
After the state failed twice at implementing the Marine Life Protection Act - known as the MLPA - a renewed attempt began in 2004, funded in large part by private foundations.
The California coastline was divided into five regions, with a group of stakeholders in each tasked with drawing and redrawing boundaries of proposed closures over months of meetings.
The five-member Blue Ribbon Task Force, which oversees the process and is convening this week's meetings, makes recommendations for final approval by the Fish and Game Commission.
Two regions are complete: the Central Coast and the North Central Coast. They have each seen about a fifth of their state waters - which extend about 3.5 miles from the coastline - turned into marine protected areas.
The initiative itself remains the subject of criticism and the occasional conspiracy theory by some fishers, who point to studies showing recovery among overfished stocks and question why measures are not being taken to improve water quality as a means to improving ocean health.
Fishermen have also been quick to ask where funding for enforcement will be found in an overburdened state budget. Fish and Game has estimated the cost to be between $9 million and $42 million, depending on the type of protections adopted. Enforcement costs thus far have come from the state's general fund, department officials said.
Gary LaCroix, a former Torrance police lieutenant who captains a charter fishing boat out of Redondo Beach Marina, called the MLPA "a dog-and-pony show."
"I've gotten to the point where I've lost sleep over this, I get so upset about it," he said.
LaCroix has closely scrutinized the initiative since fall 2008, when a group of 64 regional stakeholders from across Southern California began cajoling, bartering and fighting over the boundaries of proposed reserves in the South Coast region.
The process here has proved to be especially fraught with conflict, largely because Southern California is so densely populated and its coastline features one favorite fishing spot after another.
A way of life threatened?
On any given day, the Rocky Point area is dotted with sportfishing boats and smaller recreational vessels. Kayaks and sailboats abound on weekends, not to mention surfers. Commercial lobster boats are regularly present during the now-open season, and huge cargo ships from the nearby ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach can be spotted farther offshore.
"Cattle boats," some captained by men who have fished the same waters for more than 60 years, take dozens of hopeful anglers out of Redondo Beach's King Harbor for a half-day cruise. They return with their catch, and the boats reload. Bars and restaurants that open onto the docks keep busy.
"That's our summertime bread and butter, the Rocky Point area," said Craig Stanton, operations manager at the Redondo Beach Marina.
Stanton and many others worry their way of life, and the millions of dollars of economic activity that goes with it, is under threat.
They are frustrated by an MLPA-commissioned economic study that lumped Redondo Beach in with San Pedro and Long Beach and failed to look at any economic activity beyond the value of the fish caught or the fee paid by passengers aboard large sportfishing boats. Recreational fishing, under those constraints, has no value.
Instead, Redondo Beach fishers plugged data into a model created by the Recreational Marine Research Center at Michigan State University. That showed fishing at Rocky Point generated $17.3 million in economic activity each year, about a third of the total annual activity at King Harbor.
"This will just be a dagger into the marina business," Stanton said of possible closures. "They've already put the dagger in. We're just trying to control the bleeding."
Supporters of marine preserves say nonconsumptive activities - tourism, surfing, diving, photography - will continue and increase if key habitat areas are protected. Spending associated with that kind of oceangoing already far outpaces fishing in California, according to a study from the National Ocean Economic Program.
Of course, that hasn't convinced fishers.
Lobster fisherman Kenny Swanson, who grew up in Redondo Beach and has been fishing out of King Harbor for more than eight years, said fellow commercial lobster harvesters are "very irritated" by the MLPA.
If one of the two more restrictive proposals takes parts of Rocky Point, he said he'd have to leave King Harbor.
"I would either have to quit my business and be stuck with a boat and gear and a bunch of stuff I can't get rid of or move my business and try to squeeze into somewhere I've never fished before and be the odd man out," Swanson said.
Environmental groups say that areas outside of preserves will ultimately see a spillover effect of increased fish stocks, creating new prime fishing grounds. But they acknowledge the immediate effects.
"In the short term, it's a displacement of fishery output. There's no denying that. In the short term, you're pushing fishermen out of where they're accustomed to going," said Surfrider's Geever, who favors a conservation approach.
Meanwhile, the activism of King Harbor-based fishers has galvanized several South Bay cities to take at stand on the MLPA. Fishing groups scored a minor victory recently when Assemblyman Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, agreed to support their proposal.
But others have said they're waiting to see what comes out of the Blue Ribbon Task Force this week.
An ocean `rain forest'
The Palos Verdes Peninsula is one of the few spots in mainland Southern California that offers all the desired habitats on a list drawn up by the MLPA initiative's science advisory team.
Its persistent kelp forests and deep rocky bottom extending well offshore are especially hard to find.
"The greatest diversity in Southern California is in the kelp forest. It's really Southern California's rain forest," said Heal the Bay's Stevenson. "Juveniles seek refuge and it's a nursery. So many species use it early in their life cycle."
The extent of giant kelp forest in the mainland southern part of the state has declined roughly 80 to 90 percent in the last century, said Baykeeper's Ford.
One of the goals of creating no-fishing zones in areas with large kelp forests is to allow populations of lobster and California sheephead to flourish so they can eat sea urchins, a favorite of now-rare sea otters.
Allowed to reproduce unchecked, urchins can consume and devastate kelp beds, creating a desolate ocean floor. With the kelp forest gone or reduced, young fish have fewer areas of refuge in which to mature and hide from predators.
Scientists say they've seen success at marine protected areas created in 2003 in the Channel Islands. The spillover effect has been witnessed, with cattle boats fishing the line of the preserve.
"They're setting up habitats that will seed outside waters to help restore fishing in fishable waters," said Sarah Sikich, a stakeholder and coastal resources director with Heal the Bay. "The intention is to select key areas that will benefit marine life and people, so in the future we're able to continue fishing and diving."
Protected area proposals
Without starting new marine protected areas on the best habitat, it's doubtful they'll show the desired effects, Sikich and other environmentalists say.
That's one of the criticisms of the fishing groups' map, known as Proposal 2, which fails in several ways to meet the MLPA's guidelines but minimizes economic impacts.
The proposal takes in nearly 20 square miles of water south of Rocky Point, beginning just north of Point Vicente and sweeping east to Long Point. An adjacent conservation area allowing some fishing would cover Abalone Cove, ending near an area of sediment from the Portuguese Bend landslide.
Farther east are county wastewater outfalls at White Point, the site of a massive plume of DDT-contaminated sediment that stakeholders were told to avoid.
"Proposal 2 is really the best compromise for everybody," said Joe Farlo, a Torrance anesthesiologist and avid spearfisherman who launched a campaign called Keep Rocky Point Open.
Farlo said he had pursued support from Terranea Resort, which opened recently at Long Point and has promoted itself as environmentally friendly.
"It could be the best area in the South Coast Study Region," he said of Long Point. "A resort hotel with an eco-dive package built in? Rocky Point's got none of that - it's a huge steep cliff and is all residential."
But environmental groups point out that Proposal 2 fails to include sufficient deep rocky bottom and persistent kelp forest habitat.
That was intentional, supporters of Proposal 2 said.
"It's a policy decision. It's a conscious decision not to do that," said Kevin Ketchum, a stakeholder and general manager of California Yacht Marina, which operates three marinas in the South Bay. "The social, cultural and economic impact is so great that it doesn't warrant it."
Flying above the area that fishing groups have proposed for a reserve, it's clear there is less kelp than at Rocky Point. A few days after recent rains, the water still showed pale brown plumes of sediment.
"You can't set aside a parking lot, call it a national park and expect to get excited about it. Nor from a scientific perspective does that work," Baykeeper's Ford said.
At the outset of the MLPA process, Ford submitted a proposal that extended from Point Vicente to the edge of King Harbor. That infuriated some locals, galvanizing their involvement and helping solidify an alignment between commercial and recreational fishers.
Ford said he is reluctantly supporting the map backed by most environmental groups - Proposal 3 - but he would prefer more habitat to be protected.
Proposal 3 would extend northwest from Rocky Point, along the line that demarcates a long-enforced commercial fishing ban in Santa Monica Bay. The southern end of the marine protected area would run close to Long Point and take in half of Abalone Cove.
That accounts for more than 16 square miles of the best habitat, but it also includes waters regularly used by commercial lobster fishermen and half-day sportfishing boats.
The compromise map - Proposal 1 - covers about a mile of shore just north of Rocky Point, then runs south and west to the edge of coast waters, creating a a 17-square-mile triangle shape that may cause enforcement concerns.
The compromise proposal gets most of the best habitat and has a reduced economic impact, but it hasn't made even its drafters particularly happy. Sikich, who was on the team that drew it, is supporting Proposal 3.
Ford said he expects "very entrenched positions" to be restated at this week's meetings and anticipates the task force will tweak the designs instead of picking one.
In the end, it will be worth it, he believes.
"We won't be sitting here as we have for the past decades watching something glorious become less and less and less," Ford said.
Want to go?
What: Blue Ribbon Task Force meetings to choose marine protected areas in Southern California.
Where: Hilton Long Beach, 701 W. Ocean Blvd.
When: 1 p.m. Tuesday, 9 a.m. Wednesday and 9 a.m. Thursday. Public comment will be taken from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. and from 7 to 10 p.m. Wednesday.
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