Mendocino High students and their teacher brewed up more than hour”s worth of vigorous discussion at Monday”s meeting of MOCA (Mendocino Ocean Community Alliance). Robert Jamgochian”s SONAR SEA class energized the two-hour meeting by showing off the first map of how the Mendocino Coast might look with newly closed and fishing-restricted areas.
Cooperating with a MOCA sub-group, the SONAR (School of Natural Resources) class came up with a plan to expand existing marine reserves at Point Cabrillo and Punta Gorda (at the Humboldt County line) and one in between.
The proposal galvanized MOCA members from dealing with complex theoretical details to full discussion of actual arrays, with fishermen, environmentalists and some community members who had not spoken before getting involved.
Jamgochian carried his laptop computer around the room, showing the components of what the students came up with on Google Earth, as about 40 local residents and seven members of the class watched, argued or praised the ideas at Fort Bragg Town Hall Monday night.
It”s none too soon for an actual proposal. The Tri-County working group (Mendocino, Humboldt and Del Norte counties) wants MOCA to present an external array by Jan. 5.
The local proposal can then be melded with proposals from similar groups in the other two counties to create a single external array.
An external array is a map prepared outside the official Marine Life Protection Act process showing new areas to close to fishing uses. Those areas come in three kinds: The least restrictive state marine park, the marine protected area and the closed to all fishing marine reserve.
A sub-group of MOCA has been working with the high school class on creating a map to submit and will get back together to hone the proposal next week before MOCA meets on Monday, Jan. 4.
External arrays are being used differently in the North Coast region —which extends from Point Arena to the Oregon border — than in the rest of the state.
In other areas, external arrays were done simultaneous with the official process. Locally, Marine Life Protection Act Initiative organizers asked locals to prepare external arrays first.
When the official local stakeholders group convenes in February, they will be able to consider any external arrays submitted by grassroots groups like MOCA and that of the class itself, if the students choose to continue to that point.
The SONAR SEA class proposed creating a park at the mouth of Big River, a marine conservation area off the Mendocino Headlands and an expanded reserve off Point Cabrillo.
The privately run Marine Life Protected Act Initiative has been about confronting and limiting fishing since the process began. The organizers have chosen not to discuss limiting other uses such as widespread ocean industrialization proposals or fish farming. No requests have been made to the California Legislature to expand restrictions.
In new marine parks and marine protected areas, the process cannot restrict anything but fishing uses, a California Attorney General opinion states.
In reserves only, the regulatory agency in charge of the new area may and can ban industrial activities if the agency finds such a use harms sea creatures in that reserve.
State Parks is expected to be the agency in charge of newly created MLPA areas.
Industrial activity
This reporter listened in as MLPAI organizers tried to deal with industrial uses in Southern California. In one area where an industrial use was going on inside a proposed reserve, a “donut” was proposed as the solution. That would have allowed the industrial activity to continue in the middle of the reserve.
In the same conversation, an Attorney General opinion said that no proposal can happen where there is a pre-existing industrial use, such as leases.
That is exactly the case off Mendocino, where GreenWave LLC has been granted a commercial wave energy lease by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
If that lease still exists next summer, it would shut down all the proposals that have come forth so far to close off the Mendocino-Point Cabrillo area.
SONAR teacher Robert Jamgochian was aware of the issue and said he and the class are looking into the GreenWave situation.
Correction
On another note from the meeting, this reporter incorrectly said that $2 million in monitoring and study moneys came from the Ocean Conservancy. That was wrong, as the Ocean Protection Council is the one who has promised to write checks for up to $4 million (from a variety of sources). The $4 million has been dedicated to be used in this region once an MLPA array has been finalized.
