North County Times

Groups submit ocean protection plans

Oceanside angler outlines fishing group's proposal

By DAVE DOWNEY - Staff Writer | March 4, 2009

In a sort of shot across the bow, a local angler unveiled a statewide group's proposal Tuesday to restrict fishing in 10 percent of Southern California coastal waters, while keeping harbor areas such as Oceanside open.

"Big" Joe Exline, secretary of the Oceanside Anglers Club, presented the proposal on behalf of the Fishermen's Information Network at a Long Beach meeting of the South Coast Regional Stakeholder Group.

The group's 64-member panel, comprising scientists, environmentalists and fishermen from throughout Southern California, is working to create a system of marine protected areas stretching from Santa Barbara to the Mexican border. The effort is an outgrowth of a state law, the Marine Life Protection Act, which aims to reverse a sharp decline in ocean fish populations in recent decades by redrawing ---- and expanding ---- the boundaries of California's existing hodgepodge collection of protected areas.

Panel members are just beginning to talk about which areas should be fenced off to fishermen and which places should be left alone, and are months away from refining a plan that ultimately will be handed off to the California Fish and Game Commission late in the year.

But on Tuesday, special interest groups got their chance to put forth their own proposals for protected areas. And three such proposals were made.

Aside from the one from the Fishermen's Information Network, proposals were submitted by the United Anglers of Southern California and an environmental coalition consisting of Santa Monica Baykeeper and Santa Barbara Channelkeeper.

The anglers proposed restricting fishing along 20 percent of the coast and the environmentalists advocated overlaying 33 percent of the ocean with protected areas.

Following several relatively quiet meetings that focused on laying the ground rules, the presentations sparked a testy exchange between fishermen on the panel and presenters from the environmental coalition.

Buck Everingham, a panel member who owns a San Diego-area bait company, suggested that the conservationists' plan would largely wipe out close-in sport fishing opportunities for boats heading out from San Diego Bay. He was referring to their proposal to restrict fishing around Point Loma and La Jolla.

"You've pretty much annihilated the Point Loma half-day fleet," he said.

Tom Ford, executive director for Santa Monica Baykeeper, said he was only aiming to protect fish populations, and had no intention of putting people out of business.

"I'm not out to get anybody here," Ford said.

Scott McCreary, a facilitator for the state's Marine Life Protection Act Initiative, sought to diffuse the tension in the room by underscoring the preliminary nature of the proposals on the table, and the likelihood many changes will be made in the months ahead.

"We are far from the finish line," McCreary said.

For now, the starting point is being framed by the sharply contrasting proposals of the statewide fishing network and conservationists.

The plan Exline outlined called for restrictions on 239 square miles of coastal waters between the shoreline and three miles out, the point where the state cedes jurisdiction to the federal government.

That compares with the existing system of protected areas, which spans 180 square miles, or 7 percent of the region's coastal waters.

"We created a strong backbone all along the coast," Exline said.

He said the Fisherman's Information Network suggests creating a half-dozen new protected areas and increasing the level of protection in some existing areas.

In North County, he said, the group proposes creating a 10.7-square-mile protected area off of Del Mar. It would be a "state marine reserve," meaning all fishing would be banned.

"It's an area that, even though it has some good offshore rocky habitat, it has less (boat) traffic than other areas," Exline said.

The group also would create a San Dieguito Lagoon reserve and convert the existing La Jolla conservation area ---- where some limited fishing is allowed ---- into a reserve.

The plan would largely leave Oceanside and San Diego Bay alone. Exline said the group chose not to restrict fishing around harbors.

"We want to have the least economic impact on the communities and fisheries," he said.

The proposals are posted at www.dfg.ca.gov/mlpa/meeting_030309.asp. The group's proposal is listed as "Draft External Proposal A."

KSBY-TV 3 NBC San Luis Obispo

Residents on Central Coast debate the Marine Life Protection Act

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Reported by: Melissa Mecija

Ocean conservation topped the agenda during a meeting regarding the California Marine Life Protection Act.

There are 47 marine protected areas in Southern California. The Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) requires California's system of marine protected areas to be redesigned. The MLPA Initiative is now studying an area from Point Concepcion in Santa Barbara County to the California/Mexico border.

There are more than 1,000 miles of California coast. Some of those marine protected areas would mean no fishing zones. Thursday, both sides debated about what is best for California.

California's beautiful coast is one of the state's claims to fame. The fishermen survive on the ocean. Sport fishers and free divers, like Iaon Pohlit, say the water is like their second home.

"It's part of our heritage in Santa Barbara," Pohlit said.

Pohlit is concerned about regulations which may limit his sport.

"They're looking to do 30 to 50 percent closure on the shore access here in Santa Barbara," Pohlit said. "It seems like the people with the most money in this situation have the loudest voice, so it's the little people that really count. It is the individual citizen that stands to lose the most in this situation."

For commercial fishermen like Jeff Massen, it is a balancing act-making sure their livelihood as well as ocean resources are not threatened.

"We're negotiating, we're discussing, we're free thinking and we're trying to develop the best possible habitat," Massen said.

On the other side, the task force with the MLPA says it is about survival of the ocean and the life in it.

"We want to rebuild sustainable fisheries so we can enjoy a healthy commercial and recreational fishing industry here in California," said Mike Chrisman, secretary for Natural Resources.

Although no decisions were made Thursday, Chrisman says this process is all about you.

"Shareholders and interested parties are a part of this process, have been from the beginning," Chrisman said.

This discussion is expected to last well into 2009.

All the meetings are public. The next session of the Blue Ribbon Task Force is in April.

Torrance Daily Breeze

Local marine-life contaminant levels 'terrifyingly high'

By Melissa Pamer Staff Writer

Last year, a broad federal study, funded by the Montrose settlement, showed that many species of fish along the Palos Verdes Shelf remained contaminated. Advisories to anglers about limiting consumption have been in effect since 1991. Concentrations of the chemicals generally declined over the period of the study but remained high.

More than 35 years after local companies stopped dumping now-banned toxic chemicals off the Palos Verdes Peninsula, a new study shows that seals and sea lions feeding in the area have contamination levels that are "terrifyingly high," according to one environmental advocate.

The California State University, Long Beach, study found that California sea lions, Pacific harbor seals and northern elephant seals have much higher concentrations than previous data has shown for the pesticide DDT and a group of industrial compounds called PCBs.

The chemicals were dumped off San Pedro's White Point from 1947 to 1971 by Harbor Gateway-based Montrose Chemical Corp. and other companies. The ocean pollution resulted in a decadelong legal battle and, in 2001, a $140million settlement with state and federal governments.

More than 120 tons of DDT and PCBs settled on the Palos Verdes Shelf, contaminating many varieties of marine life and changing fishing habits along the coast.

The Cal State study, published this month in the scientific journal Marine Pollution Bulletin, said the contamination levels it found were among the highest ever detected worldwide for marine mammals.

"The results are extremely disturbing because the concentrations of DDT are so extremely high," said Mark Gold, executive director of Heal the Bay. "I personally have not seen values this high in any species."

Gold said the study indicates that the federal Environmental Protection Agency "urgently" needs to move forward with its delayed clean-up effort. A plan is set to be released early next year, an EPA official said.

Previous studies have looked at contaminants in sea lions and seals along the California coast, but few have focused specifically on the Palos Verdes Shelf, a DDT "hot spot."

The new study looked at 145 seals and sea lions - called pinnipeds - that were stranded on the coast of Los Angeles and Orange counties from 1994 to 2006, using tissue samples saved by marine mammal centers in San Pedro and Laguna Beach.

California sea lions had, on average, 594 parts per million of DDT and 87 parts per million for PCB. Results were much higher for Pacific harbor seals, which had a small sample size, and lower for Northern elephant seals, which typically come to the region's waters only for breeding and molting.

The pinnipeds' high body-fat content makes them particularly susceptible to the accumulation of fat-loving DDT and PCBs, as does their position higher on the food chain, said Gwen Goodmanlowe, the Cal State Long Beach lecturer who published the study with graduate student Mary Ellen Blasius.

"To me, the take-home message is that we stopped dumping this stuff 30-something years ago, and it's still causing problems," Goodmanlowe said.

"We don't know if they're dying from these (chemicals), but there is a possibility that these animals with these high levels are suspectable to other things - cancer, suppressed immune systems," she said.

During the Montrose litigation, seals and sea lions were never proved to show measurable effects from the contamination, so the species are not part of restoration plans, said David Witting, a federal fish biologist.

"There was never any doubt that there was lots of DDT in sea lions," said Witting, who helps oversee restoration programs funded by the Montrose settlement. "The question is, is it hurting them?"

That matter has never been investigated, in part because it's a difficult topic to study and it's almost impossible to isolate the effects of DDT and PCBs, Goodmanlowe said.

The effects of chemical contaminants of pinnipeds may have been ignored in part because - unlike bald eagles - sea lions and seals have seen continued population growth, Witting said.