CFSB Board Meeting Minutes - June 26th , 2023
Attendees: Manny Gorgita, Scott Streett, Henry Hepp, Jerry Peters, Shane Robinson, Ray Kennedy, Mary Nishimoto, Kim Selkoe, Chris Voss, Mark Brubaker, Marco Farrell, Harry Liquornik, Dick Ogg, Jason Robinson, Ed Anderson, Jeff Maassen, Eliza Harrison, Michael Harrington, Gary Burke, Garrett Rose, Nick Tharp, Mike Nelson, Stace Cheverez, Jeff Hepp, Dave Colker, Tony Luna
Notes: Ava Schulenberg
Agenda:
Buoyless Gear Continued - Jerry Peters
Important Lobster Fishery Meeting - 7/14 2:30-4PM
Board approval of 2022 Final Financial Statement DRAFT 4 including tax return and approval of 2023 Q1 Financial Statement - Michael Harrington
Board Positions
CLTFA Draft Letter - Ray Kennedy
Garden St Property
Yard Update
Commercial Fishing Subcommittee Update on Slips
Sea Sketch Update
Other:
Comments/Feedback About Ocean Rainforest’s Installation?
PFD preferences? Got feedback from some folks
Lost lobster gear reports - Summerland, Carp Beach
Chris Voss opened the meeting on June 26, 2023 at 4:06pm. Meeting was held in person in the harbor classroom and via Zoom.
Agenda:
Buoyless Gear Continued - Jerry Peters
Dick says that over time their objective is to remove all vertical lines and it was told to him by Kim Sawiki that the objective was to get all vertical lines out of the water. He understands what they're trying to do but the primary issue is it’s all relative to line length and there are other aspects to consider like if it’s applicable to the Dungeness fishery. Dick says it’s like autonomous cars you’re not going to stop accidents from happening with autonomous cars. He is not an advocate for this given the way they’re going about it.
Jerry agrees with what Dick says and he said he is involved because Devon dropped out and was supposed to be involved with this. He went to North Carolina for 5 days and went out on the boat and saw it in action. He said there were 5 devices. He says it kind of works but will it work for a multitude of fisheries? No, not in its current state. Of the 5, 1 of them kind of worked for the application it was using. He is not a ropeless fan but he had the opportunity to go see it, touch it, watch it being used and worked with Kim Sawiki who is the permittee. She runs a non-profit called Sustainable Seas. He does not know where she stands, though he has asked her straight up.
Jerry says the subsea sonics has a camera that turns 180 degrees that works with a sonic ping or you can set a timer on it - That is the only device of the 5 that shows any practical use but it did not work 100% of the time. They need a success percentage over 90, but Dick says we won’t ever know the success rate.
Jerry says it’s coming no matter what and Ray agrees and says that there is a train coming down the track.
Mark Brubaker says that it’s not for sure coming no matter what.
Shane says they’re experimenting with a fishery (box crab) that doesn’t exist. Jerry says there are 4 phases and is here to keep us all in the loop, but nothing has happened yet so he asks that people don’t get worked up yet. He says in its current state it is unsuccessful and they haven’t done any sort of modification since they made them, you can’t market these devices in their current state.
Mark says in the last meeting we had Greg and Matt and Nick saying things that left everyone with the impression of we’re going forward with this whether you like it or not - His feeling is let’s fight it tooth and nail because we’ve all been to a million meetings and we’ve seen how we get run over by playing nice, it’s time to lawyer up and jump aboard with other ports and run down those avenues vs figuring out if 1 of 5 works, etc. - He says it’s DOA
Jerry emphasizes he is not a proponent of ropeless, he’s involved because we all need to be made aware of what’s going on. He says this is years from being implemented. Jerry is saying as someone who has used it and seen it, he can tell it’s not going to happen for a long time.
Garrett says there should definitely be fear of this coming because it’s been on its way for a while and it’s something we need to be afraid of. No doubt.
Gary says he knows someone in San Francisco – They went out and made a bunch of sets and it’s only in 10 fathoms but his friend said it’s a nightmare for a bunch of different reasons because you need a canister to hold the line up. One of the biggest things is you have to replace the batteries every couple months and if water gets in they’re dead. He was also talking to Mike Conroy and he said like it or not, because of the entanglements, but they don’t know what gear it came from, lobster, crab, sablefish, so they have an issue with identifying which fishery it comes from. The NGOs rule in California. The way they’re going, he doesn’t see a future for fisheries in the next 20 years with things like this that are coming. He thinks this will add to more deaths of fisheries. Gary says unless we change the administration, we’re screwed and his hat is off to anyone that’s still trying.
Dick says when he thinks about all this nonsense, his question has to be what is their objective - Is it to get the lines out of the water? Is it to create opportunity? Is it to make money? The reality is the impact to the humpback whale is insignificant and we need to be able to convince the public that we’re doing everything we can to minimize these interactions because we are held accountable for every rope that is entangled with any animal. It’s like no matter what we do we’re wrong, so we need to convince people that we are doing everything we can to minimize these interactions. How do we make the public understand that?
Ray says ship strikes are being ignored and there’s no legislation to redirect ships up and down the coast and ship incidents with whales are 1000x what we have going with any kind of whale entanglements with any of our fisheries, but we’re the target, and it’s easy to point fingers at us. Mark agrees and says the end game is to kill the fisheries. Ray says by the time our kids grow up, what fisheries will even be available still? He is concerned about the end game of the NGOs and the pressure they put on CDFW.
Dick agrees, but asks how do we address this? Because we can sit back and be aware of all these negative things but we need a game plan. We need something positive so we can maintain these resources for the public and keep pushing the truth that we are not the culprits here, at least not the only culprits. Ray says this is tough because we’re the easiest target and no fisherman up and down the coast ever wants to tangle a whale is an unspoken fact - To educate the public and get to the NGOs that are working against us is an uphill battle. We can’t do the right thing somehow and anytime any minor thing happens, we get another black eye.
Whether we choose to shun this or not, Kim Sawiki still has the ability to find someone to do it and it’s still going to be out there - Yes he could go do it and make some money, but he knows we’d lose gear, it’d be a massive failure, especially in 150 fathoms. He’s involved in it because he wants to know what’s going on. He asked them what is this about? Is it about whale entanglement? Is it about box crab? He did not get an answer - It’s there and it’s not going away, it’s on the chopping block.
Kim Selkoe says her perspective as a fish buyer is that it changes the narrative if 1 person sells 1 crab from pop up gear it can be marketed as “the greenest crab” etc. and it makes everyone else look bad.
Chris asks if we should take an official stance on this of strong opposition for economic and practical implications and the long term viability.
Ray agrees and makes a motion that CFSB does not endorse nor encourage this technology for any fishery - Garrett seconds the motion. Chris says the whole room can vote, all members. 10 people in the room vote in favor, 4 in favor online, Jerry and Nick abstain
Harry says if an individual wants to go mess with this gear that’s their right, let’s circle back on this at the end of the meeting
Important Lobster Fishery Meeting - 7/14 2:30-4PM
There are 3 things that are going to be key with this meeting - Some people in this room may have received correspondence from CDFW asking about a port meeting. They reached out to us to schedule this meeting and the most concerning agenda item is domoic acid and what Chris wants us to do is strategize suggestions with respect to that particular topic. We have a unified voice as to what we should do in the face of that. He has attended a lot of meetings and one of the things we hit on is the possibility of tailing which has been a controversial thing, but it might be an alternative to them closing the entire fishery. No one has ever been made sick by Dungeness, rock crabs, or lobster in this state so the domoic acid poisoning risk in humans is non-existent. He thinks they’re going to want a bunch of samples and any place they get samples is going to have the potential to be closed where they close a block number. In an arbitrary fashion they’ll close entire areas where they get samples if they show domoic acid.
Ray says what they consider to be an acceptable level will be the biggest challenge. We do not have the ability to do any alternative testing - We have no say in the methods of their testing and that’s an issue. As far as samples go, he says he has personally denied giving samples because no good is going to come out of it.
Mark says it’s just another attempt at saving the whales. Ray says it’s a slightly different issue. Mark says they’re weaponizing the health dept.
Mark asks if they’ve been collecting data over the years? Chris says no but they’re wound up with all the recent seals/dolphins showing up on the beach, but they haven’t proven that it’s domoic acid poisoning, it’s an assumption. Those animals are eating pelagic species like small mackerels and they’re migratory so it can’t be assigned to a block number so it’s a ridiculous assumption to pinpoint it to a block/specific location.
Chris says tailing is allowed in a lot of lobster fisheries around the world. If we pushed hard for that in the face of them doing hard closures, it might be a good strategy.
Chris says when they do the testing they wrap the lobsters in foil and put them in boiling water. As far as we know, OR and WA do not do this method as confirmed by Chris. We need to decide what kind of alternatives we’re willing to accept.
Harry makes a motion that all the lobster fishermen in this room discuss this later. Ava will send out the agenda later.
Board Positions
Technically the board meets to select VP, President, and treasurer by vote of the 7 members. The actual process:
Chris still wants to be the President
Ray makes a motion for Chris to remain favor
Harry seconds
Unanimous approval
Ray says he will be the Vice President
Garrett makes a motion to have Ray as our VP,
The motion is seconded by Harry
Unanimous approval
Harry says he will be the treasurer
Ray makes a motion that Harry be the treasurer
Chris seconds the motion
Unanimous approval
Board approval of 2022 Final Financial Statement DRAFT 4 including tax return and approval of 2023 Q1 Financial Statement - Michael Harrington
2022:
He says what we need to approve is this draft so we can send it to the CPA. So we need to vote to approve it and Chris needs to sign it and then we’ll be good to go.
Michael makes a motion to approve forwarding the financial statements for 2022, YTD and 2022 taxes, his to the CPA, Ray seconds, unanimous approval
2023:
We’ll do this at the next meeting due to inaccurate info on the spreadsheet.
CLTFA Draft Letter - Ray Kennedy
Ray says we’re working to reinvigorate the CLFTA with Roger Healy - See a PDF of the draft letter here. We’re trying to get it going so we have another statewide organization so we have more representation to what’s coming down the pike.
Garden St Property
Harry has asked us to look into the property a couple times. Kim says she hasn’t been able to get contact information, it’s a different property than the Bordolozzos, it’s one of Fess Parker’s children, so there is no update there. Kim will ask again and thanks him for the reminder.
Yard Update
Harry has spoken to Dana McCkorkle about getting most of his dad’s stuff out of the container. We need to maybe have a yard sale and then beyond that maybe have to bring a dumpster in and haul it.We might want to look into throwing in some gravel so we might want to budget that because the gravel is getting thin - Chris and Ray say road base works just fine - Michael says it’ll be about $600 and it’s an easy drop. Ray says he can help with his flatbed truck too.
Commercial Fishing Subcommittee Update on Slips
Mike Nelson says a month ago at the harbor commission, several fishermen spoke to increasing the number of commercial slips, as this was put on the agenda officially by the Commercial Fishing Subcommittee/Working Group. Today based on work that has been done by Ray and Tony walking up and down the docs, there’s about 100 commercial boats in slips, but only 45 slips have been designated for commercial fishing. In 2020, when Kim and Chris made a presentation to the City Council, their ask was that the local seafood industry be treated as a way of diversifying the economy and adding to economic recovery on the end of the pandemic. When you look at the Coastal Development permit and look at recent action by the city council, we thought our request was a reasonable one. The commission voted unanimously in favor of the request asking the Waterfront Dept. to look into this issue. It has been one month and there has been no response thus far. Mike Nelson will meet with the working group to further discuss this as well as with City Councilmembers Jordan and Friedman because we would like to send them a letter asking, what’s the status? Mike says we need to place more pressure on the situation because nothing has happened. We want to make certain that everyone in this room knows what the work group is doing because they don’t want to do anything that this group doesn’t want to support. When we’re talking about economic development, every commercial boat is a business, so every slip is essential for economic development in our community. Of course we’re not going to get to the 19% amount of commercial slips that was initially proposed by the Coastal Commission, but there are potentially some movements that they could free up, but for now we primarily want them to just focus on this analysis.
Ray says Wiltshire’s (the Waterfront Director) reaction was not as adversarial as the last time we had a meeting. He was receptive to the amount of research that we had done and understands that these are sins of the forefathers and he kind of inherited this issue.
Harry asks how many commercial fishermen are in rec slips - Ray says him and Tony went around and calculated about 50 boats that have commercial numbers that are not in commercial slips. Harry suggests that we conjure up this list and give it to the Waterfront Dept. and give it to the City Council.
Chris says if we go to City Council, there might be a number that is required at that point; A more specific ask, so we should build up a dataset that justifies the ask.
Chris acknowledges Mike Nelson’s efforts and he is thanked by the room - Ray emphasizes this and says the tone in the meeting of the Harbor Commission was much more sympathetic towards us than in the past.
Mike says we don’t want them to blame the sins of the forefathers on commercial fishermen.
Sea Sketch Update
Chris says we’ve talked about this before - It’s our effort to capture fishing activity by location so we can compile a dataset so we know what kinds of activity is taking place so we can deal with the onslaught of open ocean aquaculture that’s going to be taking place on the Ventura Flats. This is a federal initiative and they are proposing that this is prime real estate for aquaculture. We have historically vehemently opposed any finfish aquaculture but have not supported or opposed officially any bivalve aquaculture; We were neutral. So the goal of this project with SeaSketch is to have a tool for us to be able to defend fishing grounds by means of gathering this data with fishermen.
Mark asks what exactly they’re proposing on the flats? Chris says it’s about 1000 acres that they’re proposing, similar to Ocean Rainforest but it would be on steroids.
Eliza jumps in and says because it’s a demonstration project, that’s why those buoys are so enormous, if it were actually commercial, and not demonstration, it wouldn’t look like that. She asks that we do not imagine fields of those buoys for miles on end.
Shane asks Eliza how they’re able to have so many vertical lines? Eliza says the fact of the matter is unlike some fishing gear, their system is a tension structure so theoretically there shouldn't be any opportunity for a whale to wrap because all their lines are connected to things and have a weaker breaking strength, so they were able to argue with these points to the regulatory agencies. They are constantly documenting marine mammals moving through the site without having any issues. She says aquaculture gear differs because of the tensioning but she knows that this question is being asked in Maine as well.
Ava will administer the survey and this will be another round of interviews similar to the ones she conducted last year. There will be overlays for depth, etc. but please know that this information is completely proprietary.
Mark says we’ve heard this all before. Kim emphasizes though that it’s us doing this, not an outside agency. Harry says if it’s a good enough model, we should do it.
In terms of the funding, Eliza says they’ve got their quarterly review meeting with Arpa E this week so they’re moving through the process and will ask more about funding this for us and we can expect to have a clear answer by this summer on them funding this project. More to come there soon.
Ava will begin doing draft surveys.
Other:
Comments/Feedback About Ocean Rainforest’s Installation?
Ran out of time - Will address at next meeting
PFD preferences? Got feedback from some folks
Ran out of time - Will address at next meeting
Lost lobster gear reports - Summerland, Carp Beach
Ava and Kim have received numerous recent reports of lobster traps particularly at the sea wall on Summerland Beach if you walk right when you get down the ramp from the parking lot. Chris and Ava will plan a cleanup to address this larger pile - Ava will keep the fleet posted on details of this effort if anyone would like to help.
Update on Platform Holly - Mary Nishimoto
Mary ahs been doing research on the platforms and on the reefs looking at the ecology of the fish/invertebrates - She works with Milton Love who received funding and support from state lands working with Padre associates and the task is to do a biological survey of the platform Holly infrastructure, offshore, the platforms, the seep tents, the pipelines, and she’ll be working with them running ROV surveys and they’ll be reviewing those surveys to assess the invertebrates communities on those structures and on teh bottom as well. This work will start in August and in addition to those biological surveys, Padre brought her on to do a fisheries technical report to inform what they’re producing for State Lands. There are a number of things that Mary proposed and would like to accomplish - 1 is to describe the fisheries in the Holly area as the baseline and current use of that area and the same for the fisheries and use of those areas by the fishermen in the transit corridors from Holly to Santa Barbara Harbor and also Port Hueneme which will be an important port for any mobilization of equipment so that is a major objective to describe the fisheries. The way to do that is to use good information and to use any kind of reports, data summaries, academic papers and reviews, and anything we all may have that she can make use of. She says she will use block data and she welcomes everybody's input on that. She knows it’s course information but at least we can get a high level understanding of what’s being targeted by this community, Ventura, Channel Islands, and maybe even in the Morro Bay area - How are these areas used and by whom. She also hopes to get numbers of how many fishermen there are and what kind of gear types are being used. She hopes that the fleet will get wind of this and later in this process, as she develops this report, she would like fishermen to review it and give their input in regard to what is reasonable, what is not reasonable, what is off-base, because she would like this to be a good document and it is limited to the matter of decommissioning Holly and she’s available now if we have ideas of things that should be brought into the report, but it will be about 8-9 month project starting in September for Mary so particularly towards the end, when she completes the project is when she is going to rely on people’s participation to review it, but input before is welcomed too. There will be money available for fishermen who help her.
Harry asks how big of an area around Holly? Mary says the intertidal fishing zones, the inshore zones, and Ellwood Pier and Goleta Bay, and then transit areas including our harbor across the channel and to Port Hueneme.
Jeff Maassen asks about opinions of partial/full removal (we’ve discussed this before). Ray says we’re never going to have a clean bottom but a partial removal still preserves the fishing ground productivity.
Mark says that he’s seen ads about partial removal and it’s being glorified nationwide.
Mary clarifies that the platforms are not in an MPA, they’re often talked about as being de facto reserves because of the limits of being able to actually fish around them. State Lands does want to hear from the public what they foresee as being the end condition for these sites - Leave them in, take them out, etc. - It includes the pipelines and seeps, what about those? Because Holly is owned by the state, it comes down to the public’s money and it’s going to be very expensive to take that stuff out. Partial removal is a cheaper cost than total removal of course. Mary says this is all brand new stuff so the public has a strong say in terms of what precedent is set and do we want to turn them into artificial reefs?
Mary says the companies are mandated to remove everything they’ve placed in each site - There are questions about what is under the shell mounds. With Platform Holly, there’s a substantial amount of mounds there, and the State has made it clear that they want them tested.
Nick brings up the study done by Merit McCrea on rockfish numbers on/around the platform. Mary says this is important and there will be a net environmental study done for Platform Holly evaluating the biological production for fish and the major component of what makes platforms so productive is their nursing grounds for juvenile rockfish.
Kim Selkoe ended the meeting at 6:00pm.