halibutmike
09-15-2009, 01:26 AM
The following were posted to the OCDiving News List from Ray Hiemstra and Steve Benavides. - Both Non-consumptive reps.
"From: ray@coastkeeper.org
Sent: Sun, 13 Sep 2009 13:38:26 -0700
To: news@ocdiving.com
Subject: [OC Diving -News] MLPA/Final Round Three RSG Summary
Hello everyone,
Now that I am somewhat recovered from the grueling three day marathon South Coast Regional Stakeholder group meeting last week I would like to provide you with a summary of the final Round Three RSG meeting.
As you may know when round three of the South Coast MLPA process began in August the Blue Ribbon Task Force decided that the best way to proceed was to realign the three Regional Stakeholder Group subgroups to better reflect MPA design objectives of all the stakeholders. To achieve this goal the stakeholders were grouped into middle ground (group 1), consumptive (group 2), and non consumptive (group 3) subgroups with the goal of developing a more diverse set of proposals than was produced in round two. The charge to each of these groups was to meet the science guidelines of the MLPA while reflecting the different priorities of the constituents the stakeholders in these groups represent.
I was in group 1 so my summary will focus on the work of that group. After the two day meeting in Carlsbad in August it was obvious that we needed to put in a lot of extra effort to do a good job of meeting cross interest (the focus of group 1), so we put together a series of four conference calls to work on specific geographies in the South Coast Region, those were; Santa Barbara, Los Angeles County, Orange County, San Diego County and Catalina. The conference calls were led by stakeholders with assistance from MLPA staff and included interactive mapping capability via Go To Meeting technology. All stakeholders were invited to participate in these calls and the number of participants ranged from six to twelve depending on the geography. The goal of the calls was to reduce the number of MPA options to bring back to the full group in September to one or two so that the September meeting would go smoother. I participated in all of the calls and progress was made in all of them, although not all areas were whittled down to two options.
After these calls were completed it was agreed that we still had a long way to go so it was decided that we would try to get as many group 1 members to meet physically on the day before the official RSG meeting. This meeting went well with a large turnout of the Group one members. With full staff support we were further divided into three subgroups that each developed a full set of reserves for use as the starting point for the official RSG meeting September 9th. At the September 9th meeting we reconvened as one group and refined our proposal and presented it to the public in the evening. On September 10th we received additional guidance from the Science Advisory Team and the MLPA staff and heard public comment on or draft proposals and then we went back to work and completed our proposal.
For Orange County the final proposal we came up with was for a no take reserve from Aliso Creek County Park in the south to Reef Point in Crystal Cove State Park in the north. The reserve is pie shaped and goes to a point just short of the state waters boundary off main beach in Laguna. The reserve will allow for continued restoration activities (such as for kelp) and will not interfere with any monitoring or maintenance requirements for the Aliso Creek Outfall (which is outside of the reserve). On either side of this reserve is a State Marine Conservation Area (SMCA) that is primarily designed to protect intertidal resources. In the north the SMCA extends from Reef Point to the Wedge in Newport Beach. In the south the SMCA extends from Aliso Creek County Park to the bend in the Dana Point Harbor jetty. Both SMCAs extend off shore for approximately one mile (this is for DFG feasibility). Both of these SMCA’s allow the take of all finfish except sheephead and no take of invertebrates except lobster, urchin, and squid. The other two groups developed different ideas, but both have a reserve in Laguna and full coast intertidal protection. I will leave the detailed description of those proposals to members of those groups that subscribe to this listserv.
While I am sure very few people will think this is the ideal design for a set of MPAs in Orange County it does meet most of the guidelines we were given by the Science Advisory Team, DFG, and State Parks along with meeting cross interests. I can assure you all that all sides were well and vigorously represented and I want to point out the efforts of several Group 1 stakeholders that put a lot of extra effort into this area to make it work, including Dave Rudie, Eric Kett, and Chugey Sepulveda. All of us lost a lot of sleep over Orange County (and the other areas) representing our constituents.
This is not the end of the process, the final proposals will be evaluated by the Science Advisory Team and that evaluation will be made public in early October. Then the Blue Ribbon Task Force will look at all three proposals and either select one as the preferred alternative or put together one of their own from ideas from all three (the latter has happened in both of the previous regions) based on the SAT evaluations and public comment. So you still have a chance to make a difference in the final outcome! Thanks to all of you for your input and online discussions so far. They have helped me and other stakeholders in this process. As always I will be glad to answer any questions you have on this issue.
Ray Hiemstra, Associate Director, Orange County Coastkeeper, 714-850-1965"
"From: steve@sgbcpa.com
Sent: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 10:06:28 -0700
To: news@ocdiving.com
Subject: [OC Diving -News] MLPA/Final Round Three RSG Summary Part 2
I want to add a little bit to the comprehensive summary that Ray just gave. In the final round I was assigned to workgroup three whose task was distinctly different from race. Our charge was to design a network of MPA's which attempted to meet the science guidelines using preferred spacing and size. As a result, the reserve shapes my group designed tended to be larger because the preferred size was our goal. We were asked by the BRTF to do this because they wanted a series of proposals which provided a richer and more robust network to contrast against the other offerings. Six weeks ago when we received our workgroup three assignment we broke down all the geographies into distinct subsets and assigned or had people volunteer to work on each of the spatial orientations. We had a workgroup assigned to the orange County Coast with which I collaborated but I was not one of the primary participants.
I will only address the orange county portion in this post. My group had particular difficulty with orange county. When we met on Wednesday we still had trouble getting the state marine conservation area lines drawn. All three of the maps which will go forward to the BRTF share this difficult issue and orange County Coast fairly demands that the state Marine conservation areas bordering the state Marine reserve follow the coastline in a narrow band since the goal was to protect the intertidal. All three of the maps place a state Marine reserves of at least 9 mi.˛ smack dab in the middle of Laguna. This was not my favorite choice to begin locating an SMR for Laguna. The initial placement in central Laguna was done by the recreational and commercial fishing community and outside alternative A. This was also known as the FIC/FIN proposal. The original proposal was adopted by all three of the original working groups and so the root protection afforded to Laguna Beach arises from the original fishing proposal. I believe there was a reason the fishermen proposed a no take state Marine reserve in the middle of Laguna and that is because that particular location as the least economic cost to them. I read this as saying that it is not the best habitat in which to place the reserve. My personal opinion and not based on 40 years of diving in this area is that the better habitat to protect lies in the Dana Point Headland north to south Laguna. Any attempt to move the state Marine reserve south from the central Laguna location was met by vociferous objection from the commercial fishing community. There was also significant political pressure placed by the residents of Laguna Beach: to co-locate a Marine reserve contiguous with the Laguna Beach city limits. I find it difficult to believe that the city limits of Laguna Beach are adequate scientific notation for locating a Marine reserve, but that's what we got.
All three of the maps locate a state Marine reserve of at least 9 mi.˛ in the center of Laguna. Workgroup three in which I participated is proposing the larger of the three shapes. The reason we did that was that our charge from the BRTF was to design an array using preferred size and spacing. The preferred size of reserves is significantly larger than the minimum size which is scheduled at 9 mi.˛. I am also not happy with the fact that co-locating the reserve in central Laguna said definitely impacts consumptive user access to the ocean. There is simply not that much user access in the northern and southern limits of the Laguna coastline. I am very pleased with the rest of the product for workgroup three. We are all going to have a difficult time in mixed emotions as we learn to live with whatever product is finally adopted for the central Laguna area.
Stephen G. Benavides, steve@sgbcpa.com, 949-474-7427
What this country needs are more unemployed politicians. "
"From: ray@coastkeeper.org
Sent: Sun, 13 Sep 2009 13:38:26 -0700
To: news@ocdiving.com
Subject: [OC Diving -News] MLPA/Final Round Three RSG Summary
Hello everyone,
Now that I am somewhat recovered from the grueling three day marathon South Coast Regional Stakeholder group meeting last week I would like to provide you with a summary of the final Round Three RSG meeting.
As you may know when round three of the South Coast MLPA process began in August the Blue Ribbon Task Force decided that the best way to proceed was to realign the three Regional Stakeholder Group subgroups to better reflect MPA design objectives of all the stakeholders. To achieve this goal the stakeholders were grouped into middle ground (group 1), consumptive (group 2), and non consumptive (group 3) subgroups with the goal of developing a more diverse set of proposals than was produced in round two. The charge to each of these groups was to meet the science guidelines of the MLPA while reflecting the different priorities of the constituents the stakeholders in these groups represent.
I was in group 1 so my summary will focus on the work of that group. After the two day meeting in Carlsbad in August it was obvious that we needed to put in a lot of extra effort to do a good job of meeting cross interest (the focus of group 1), so we put together a series of four conference calls to work on specific geographies in the South Coast Region, those were; Santa Barbara, Los Angeles County, Orange County, San Diego County and Catalina. The conference calls were led by stakeholders with assistance from MLPA staff and included interactive mapping capability via Go To Meeting technology. All stakeholders were invited to participate in these calls and the number of participants ranged from six to twelve depending on the geography. The goal of the calls was to reduce the number of MPA options to bring back to the full group in September to one or two so that the September meeting would go smoother. I participated in all of the calls and progress was made in all of them, although not all areas were whittled down to two options.
After these calls were completed it was agreed that we still had a long way to go so it was decided that we would try to get as many group 1 members to meet physically on the day before the official RSG meeting. This meeting went well with a large turnout of the Group one members. With full staff support we were further divided into three subgroups that each developed a full set of reserves for use as the starting point for the official RSG meeting September 9th. At the September 9th meeting we reconvened as one group and refined our proposal and presented it to the public in the evening. On September 10th we received additional guidance from the Science Advisory Team and the MLPA staff and heard public comment on or draft proposals and then we went back to work and completed our proposal.
For Orange County the final proposal we came up with was for a no take reserve from Aliso Creek County Park in the south to Reef Point in Crystal Cove State Park in the north. The reserve is pie shaped and goes to a point just short of the state waters boundary off main beach in Laguna. The reserve will allow for continued restoration activities (such as for kelp) and will not interfere with any monitoring or maintenance requirements for the Aliso Creek Outfall (which is outside of the reserve). On either side of this reserve is a State Marine Conservation Area (SMCA) that is primarily designed to protect intertidal resources. In the north the SMCA extends from Reef Point to the Wedge in Newport Beach. In the south the SMCA extends from Aliso Creek County Park to the bend in the Dana Point Harbor jetty. Both SMCAs extend off shore for approximately one mile (this is for DFG feasibility). Both of these SMCA’s allow the take of all finfish except sheephead and no take of invertebrates except lobster, urchin, and squid. The other two groups developed different ideas, but both have a reserve in Laguna and full coast intertidal protection. I will leave the detailed description of those proposals to members of those groups that subscribe to this listserv.
While I am sure very few people will think this is the ideal design for a set of MPAs in Orange County it does meet most of the guidelines we were given by the Science Advisory Team, DFG, and State Parks along with meeting cross interests. I can assure you all that all sides were well and vigorously represented and I want to point out the efforts of several Group 1 stakeholders that put a lot of extra effort into this area to make it work, including Dave Rudie, Eric Kett, and Chugey Sepulveda. All of us lost a lot of sleep over Orange County (and the other areas) representing our constituents.
This is not the end of the process, the final proposals will be evaluated by the Science Advisory Team and that evaluation will be made public in early October. Then the Blue Ribbon Task Force will look at all three proposals and either select one as the preferred alternative or put together one of their own from ideas from all three (the latter has happened in both of the previous regions) based on the SAT evaluations and public comment. So you still have a chance to make a difference in the final outcome! Thanks to all of you for your input and online discussions so far. They have helped me and other stakeholders in this process. As always I will be glad to answer any questions you have on this issue.
Ray Hiemstra, Associate Director, Orange County Coastkeeper, 714-850-1965"
"From: steve@sgbcpa.com
Sent: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 10:06:28 -0700
To: news@ocdiving.com
Subject: [OC Diving -News] MLPA/Final Round Three RSG Summary Part 2
I want to add a little bit to the comprehensive summary that Ray just gave. In the final round I was assigned to workgroup three whose task was distinctly different from race. Our charge was to design a network of MPA's which attempted to meet the science guidelines using preferred spacing and size. As a result, the reserve shapes my group designed tended to be larger because the preferred size was our goal. We were asked by the BRTF to do this because they wanted a series of proposals which provided a richer and more robust network to contrast against the other offerings. Six weeks ago when we received our workgroup three assignment we broke down all the geographies into distinct subsets and assigned or had people volunteer to work on each of the spatial orientations. We had a workgroup assigned to the orange County Coast with which I collaborated but I was not one of the primary participants.
I will only address the orange county portion in this post. My group had particular difficulty with orange county. When we met on Wednesday we still had trouble getting the state marine conservation area lines drawn. All three of the maps which will go forward to the BRTF share this difficult issue and orange County Coast fairly demands that the state Marine conservation areas bordering the state Marine reserve follow the coastline in a narrow band since the goal was to protect the intertidal. All three of the maps place a state Marine reserves of at least 9 mi.˛ smack dab in the middle of Laguna. This was not my favorite choice to begin locating an SMR for Laguna. The initial placement in central Laguna was done by the recreational and commercial fishing community and outside alternative A. This was also known as the FIC/FIN proposal. The original proposal was adopted by all three of the original working groups and so the root protection afforded to Laguna Beach arises from the original fishing proposal. I believe there was a reason the fishermen proposed a no take state Marine reserve in the middle of Laguna and that is because that particular location as the least economic cost to them. I read this as saying that it is not the best habitat in which to place the reserve. My personal opinion and not based on 40 years of diving in this area is that the better habitat to protect lies in the Dana Point Headland north to south Laguna. Any attempt to move the state Marine reserve south from the central Laguna location was met by vociferous objection from the commercial fishing community. There was also significant political pressure placed by the residents of Laguna Beach: to co-locate a Marine reserve contiguous with the Laguna Beach city limits. I find it difficult to believe that the city limits of Laguna Beach are adequate scientific notation for locating a Marine reserve, but that's what we got.
All three of the maps locate a state Marine reserve of at least 9 mi.˛ in the center of Laguna. Workgroup three in which I participated is proposing the larger of the three shapes. The reason we did that was that our charge from the BRTF was to design an array using preferred size and spacing. The preferred size of reserves is significantly larger than the minimum size which is scheduled at 9 mi.˛. I am also not happy with the fact that co-locating the reserve in central Laguna said definitely impacts consumptive user access to the ocean. There is simply not that much user access in the northern and southern limits of the Laguna coastline. I am very pleased with the rest of the product for workgroup three. We are all going to have a difficult time in mixed emotions as we learn to live with whatever product is finally adopted for the central Laguna area.
Stephen G. Benavides, steve@sgbcpa.com, 949-474-7427
What this country needs are more unemployed politicians. "