Nor Cal MPA

[wade]

http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/sd...4b3bc01aa.html

By DEBORAH SULLIVAN BRENNAN dbrennan@nctimes.com | Posted: Tuesday, October 18, 2011 7:00 pm

A San Diego Superior Court judge has rejected a challenge to recently established Marine Protected Areas, upholding the network of conservation areas along the Northern California coast.
The decision, announced Monday by Superior Court Judge Ronald Prager, overruled complaints by a coalition of sportfishing groups that the California Fish and Game Commission failed to follow state law when it created the Marine Protected Areas in Northern California.
While the decision doesn't address similar, anticipated challenges to marine areas in Southern California, conservation groups said it sets a precedent for those complaints.
"We expect that this case will resolve most of the claims in the South Coast," said Karen Garrison, co-director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's ocean program. "This decision upholds California's landmark program to restore its oceans to sustainable abundance."
The judge's decision Monday dismissed fishing groups' complaints that the commission lacked the authority to designate the protected areas in Northern California, or that it required a coastal act permit to do so.
"We're naturally disappointed," said Bob Fletcher, retired president of the Sportfishing Association of California, and a petitioner on the case. "We felt that our arguments are very much on point, and we still believe the commission did not have statutory authority to take the action it took."
Fletcher said fishing groups are reviewing their options for appeal, and considering how the decision will affect plans to challenge marine areas in Southern California.
Last December, the commission approved a plan to replenish failing fisheries by setting aside 16.5 percent of Southern California's offshore habitat, more than doubling existing protected areas. The protected areas, which would limit fishing and other activities, were slated to take effect Oct. 1.
In September, however, the state Office of Administrative Law disapproved the regulation creating the areas, saying the commission failed to follow procedures for creating the plan. It directed the commission to correct the errors, re-open public notice and submit the revised plan. That process will delay the opening date for the reserves to Jan. 1, said Adrianna Shea, deputy executive director to the commission.
Fishing groups had planned to challenge the South Coast plan when it is finalized, using the complaint against the Northern California marine areas to make its case. Fletcher said many of the allegations made in the Northern California case are the same ones the fishing groups planned to raise against the South Coast marine preserves.
"That has hurt our case on the south coast," Fletcher said of Monday's court decision.
However, Fletcher said, the fishing groups plan to raise separate allegations that the commission violated the California Environmental Quality Act in creating the South Coast reserves, though he said that lawsuit probably would be a couple years out.
"We have raised 14 different instances where they have failed to comply with the CEQA," he said.


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