Media coverage...

[Tman]

So, do you think we'll start seeing more and more of this in the news now that we've had our time for 'extensive public input'?

From the North County Times...



REGION: Preferred ocean plan named

Task force recommends closing kelp beds


By DAVE DOWNEY - ddowney@californian.com | Posted: Tuesday, November 10, 2009 9:05 pm | No Comments Posted

By the North County Times





A state task force on Tuesday set the stage for closing 9 square miles of kelp beds off Encinitas to commercial fishing, potentially devastating the northern San Diego County lobster industry and the Oceanside Harbor that serves as its home port.
At the same time, the task force, at a pivotal meeting in Los Angeles, opted not to create a protected area off Del Mar, relieving city officials' fears that efforts to pump sand up from the ocean bottom onto thinning beaches would be derailed by a ban on that and other human activities.
The five-member panel also voted to protect San Elijo and Batiquitos lagoons, and to create a protected zone off south La Jolla that substantially restricts fishing there. But, in a compromise, members shaved its size from 9 square miles to 7 square miles.
Those were the key North County features of a sweeping plan for a network of what are essentially wilderness areas over state waters, stretching from Santa Barbara to the U.S.-Mexico border.
The decision reached by the task force, composed of an environmental lawyer, marina operator, oil official, museum director and waterfront developer, isn't final. Rather, it is a "preferred alternative" that will be formally delivered to the California Fish and Game Commission next month. The state commission then is expected to determine the final boundaries next summer or fall.
However, in recent years the commission has closely followed task force recommendations.
"It's a sad day for the lobster guys and for the harbor of Oceanside," said Dave Rudie, owner of a San Diego seafood company, Catalina Offshore Products, and member of a 64-person stakeholder group that advised the task force.
Rudie represented San Diego County commercial fishermen on the stakeholder panel and attended the meeting.
"(The decision) is really going to have a huge, huge negative impact on the lobster guys," Rudie said after the vote. "They're going to work just as hard and catch less lobster. And at the end of the day they're going to have a hard time feeding their families."
Rudie said lobster fishermen depend heavily on the rich kelp beds off Encinitas, where the task force wants to create a 9-square-mile Swami's state marine conservation area.
Besides restricting the commercial catch, the zone would bar hook-and-line fishing from the shore at Cardiff and San Elijo state beaches, a state parks official told the task force.
The only permitted fishing would be with spears for pelagic fish, which are species that migrate or cover long distances and are popular with fishermen.
Rudie said the plan, however, would have a minimal effect on sea urchin fishermen.
"They work more out of Solana Beach and that was left open," he said.
The task force also left open Del Mar, site of an earlier proposal to create a state reserve where nothing ---- animal or object ---- can be pulled out of the surf.
"A lot of people will be happy with that," Del Mar Mayor Crystal Crawford said in a telephone interview.
Crawford said her city wanted the state to leave the waters off Del Mar alone to avoid interfering with future plans for beach nourishment. And given that those waters cover mostly sand, it makes more sense from an environmental standpoint to protect other areas, she said.
But from an environmental standpoint, the plan could have been better, said Kate Hanley, a stakeholder group member from San Diego Coastkeeper.
Hanley said she "would have liked to see more protections for south La Jolla's kelp forest."
The task force voted 5-0 to ratify a motion of member Meg Caldwell, director of the environmental law program at Stanford University Law School.
Besides aiming to protect the kelp beds at Encinitas and La Jolla, Caldwell said it was important to protect North County's lagoons.
"In California, we have just 5 percent of our coastal wetlands left," she said. "So I'm quite proud of the amount of estuary coverage that we are considering, particularly in this (San Diego County) region."
Given the importance of the meeting, dozens of fishermen, kayakers, divers and other ocean users attended and spoke out when given an opportunity late in the afternoon, in what was an all-day meeting.
But emotions were high and boiled over at one point, when one man shouted his frustration. Asked to be quiet, he yelled back, "Come outside and tell me to shut up."
That prompted the task force chairwoman, Cathy Reheis-Boyd, chief operating officer for the Western States Petroleum Association, to plead for patience.
"I appreciate the emotion in the room," she said. "We know this is a very important conversation."
The conversation to create a network of ocean reserves was triggered by a 1999 state law, the Marine Life Protection Act, that aimed to boost declining fish populations to historic levels and protect ocean ecosystems.
To see how the plan affects San Diego County, download this document and scroll down to page 5. Option 2 is the one that was chosen by the task force.
Call staff writer Dave Downey at 951-676-4315, ext. 2623.



"Besides restricting the commercial catch, the zone would bar hook-and-line fishing from the shore at Cardiff and San Elijo state beaches, a state parks official told the task force.
The only permitted fishing would be with spears for pelagic fish, which are species that migrate or cover long distances and are popular with fishermen."

So, can I still kayak fish there, away from the shore, or do I get back into spearfishing?

These numb nuts are clearly not thinking straight...so, come to San Elijo, pay $60 to camp all weekend, but leave the fishing poles at home...genius work there task force.