CFSB General Port-Wide Meeting Minutes - December 12, 2022
Attendees: Zack Robinson, Ray Kennedy, Mary Nishimoto, John Colgate, Bernard Friedman, Doug Bush, Paul Teall, Eliza Harrison, Kim Selkoe, Chris Voss, Gary Burke, Edward Anderson, Bob Kryzko, Tony Luna, Michael Harrington, Garrett Rose, Dominic Mercaldo, Harry Liquornik, Mike Nelson, Jon Gonzales, Jeff Hepp
Notes: Ava Schulenberg
Agenda:
Aquaculture in the Channel: We need your input on our strategy of engagement regarding imminent new permit applications for commercial aquaculture in the Channel. We have an opportunity to create a map of fishing grounds with the goal of using this map as a tool to push back on any placement of new farms in fishing grounds (and other uses in the future that threaten fishing grounds). This approach has been taken by the North Coast and Central Coast fishing associations for other space conflicts such as wind energy, and they have encouraged us to do the same and have advised us on how to go about it. NOAA scientists have also encouraged us to do this and say they will use our map to avoid siting conflicts. We will hold a vote on whether to produce a proprietary map of fishing grounds for this purpose.
Oil Rig Decommissioning: We need to give Public Comment on BSEE's Analysis of Decommissioning Oil and Gas Infrastructure off California Coast. The big decision is whether the fishing community supports full removal of all rigs, or sees some benefit in partial removal to turn rigs into reefs. We will gather your input and any questions you have that we can find answers on, and hold a vote on CFSB's position.
If we have time:
Eliza’s update
Tony and Ray’s update on slips
Kim Selkoe opened the meeting on December 12, 2022 at 4:03pm. Meeting was held in person in the harbor classroom and via Zoom.
Minutes:
Aquaculture in the Channel: We need your input on our strategy of engagement regarding imminent new permit applications for commercial aquaculture in the Channel. We have an opportunity to create a map of fishing grounds with the goal of using this map as a tool to push back on any placement of new farms in fishing grounds (and other uses in the future that threaten fishing grounds). This approach has been taken by the North Coast and Central Coast fishing associations for other space conflicts such as wind energy, and they have encouraged us to do the same and have advised us on how to go about it. NOAA scientists have also encouraged us to do this and say they will use our map to avoid siting conflicts. We will hold a vote on whether to produce a proprietary map of fishing grounds for this purpose.
Kim there are two ways to do build a map of fishing grounds - use a technological tool like Sea Sketch that we can vet and make it confidential, the other way to go about it would be to print out big maps and draw all over it and then digitize that but there’s more room for error with that so sea sketch would be faster but the bigger question is going to be do we want to go down this road - We could potentially get funding from NOAA to have Kim and Ava survey folks
Ray asks about a downside to this and John says we’re going to have maps with all these donut holes in it which ties us into a program that we’re going to get stuck with and it’s going to work against us in the end
Bernard asks why do it now and Kim says it will take at least probably 9 months which is a relevant timeline in terms of what’s going on right now and important deadlines
Chris says 32000 sq miles will be lost to offshore wind in the coming years so that’s also something to consider, we might want to have something like this in our pocket sooner rather than later
Kim says we could get everything set up and not collect the data until we feel ready but it will take time to get it set up
Kim says the north coast has already completed one of these and the central coast is working on it now which is how this whole topic got started because the port leaders suggested that we do this too.
Doug wants to know what’s proprietary about this and Kim says the data that each person puts in is anonymous and we own the final product. It’s not like the data would never be shared but the whole point is that it’s up to us when and how we want to share it.
Doug asks how the data is validated and Harry says that when they did the Channel Islands study they captured 90% of the effort based on the guys that released their landing data and then they throw that data into the blocks and they hashed off each block into one fifth of a mile and then you grade each one. Doug asks what the biggest barriers were in terms of participation and willingness to share - Harry says most guys did participate because he says at that time they were standing on the railroad tracks with the train coming, so they didn’t really feel they had much of a choice. Doug says this sounds like the exact output you’d want but this is only one fishery, though Harry says it was multiple, including squid, etc. so it was across multiple fisheries and a lot of data
Doug says heat maps would be ideal because you can get a clear sense of repetitive use and you’d want to look at those over time
Eliza agrees and says if they had access to this kind of data it would’ve been very helpful for a group like Ocean Rainforest so they could avoid fishing grounds because the data they had was not as accurate which leads to more conflict when the implementation process starts for projects like theirs
Doug wants this type of initiative to work especially for the future of aquaculture and commercial fishing to deliver a net positive impact to our working waterfront community
Paul asks about mapping navigational channels which everyone agrees would be great to add and can be included no problem.
Paul asks Eliza how big the size of their next application would be which she says she is not sure yet but she says it could be 500-2000 acres in a staged roll out and it would be outside of SB but still in the channel and they would include a navigational channel if it would be a bigger size. She emphasizes that commercial fishermen would be included heavily in the conversation when that time comes
Dominic says there’s a lot of opinions on this in regard to aquaculture and some folks will benefit and make a lot of money and you have some fishermen that are in a declining fishery that might get displaced or be negatively impacted. He wonders how much we want to be a part of facilitating this transition that some people see as inevitable or do we want to use our resources to fight this urbanization of the ocean? He thinks aquaculture/kelp farms etc. should be placed in MPAs - His question is for the more experienced fishermen in the room who saw how the MPAs went down, he asks if we trust if our efforts here will not be used against us? Because he doesn’t know what the best course of action is
Gary says aquaculture is coming whether we like it or not. CA is a fan of some of it but not all of it (not finfish), it won’t be as fast as offshore wind but it’s still coming. He says if we don’t do this map you’ve got to go to meetings and voice your opinions because log books and AIS are not good sources of truth. He doesn’t know why we wouldn’t want to have this resource in our arsenal because if we have these maps you can encompass all fishermen, if we vote on this he votes yes to do it
Tony agrees and says we won’t be able to stop aquaculture so we might as well try to make the effort with these maps because they’re going to shove it down our throats and do whatever they want if we don’t present some kind of united data points like these maps could provide. He also thinks Dominic’s idea about the MPAs would be ideal, but the room says it’s not likely that that happens
Paul says he supports the maps but we need to prioritize navigational routes/hazards because they could look at a map and say oh they’re not fishing there put it there, but it could be a primary navigational hazard. He emphasizes that these maps will be much more robust than any AIS or VMS data
Ray is also in support of the maps and says if we have no turf declared, then the whole thing is open for them to put their farms.
Harry says each guy can decide to engage or don’t engage - Chris asks the group if we have enough guys that will even want to engage?
Kim says you also can have folks enter data on behalf of other people it doesn’t need to just be your fishing spots, you don’t have to make the maps that way
Tony thinks this is good because there are zones that aren’t that good now but used to be and maybe will be good again so we should be mindful of marking zones based on future potential/past behavior too
Michael Harrington says they didn’t have PR when they were going through the MPA process and we need PR to let people know what’s going on with the program
Chris also emphasizes that there’s weight to this type of map because it’s accepted by the Coastal Commission and the Feds
Paul asks if you can use fishery data in addition to people’s input on the maps and Kim says yes
Dominic asks if there is a way that we can stall so we get the best map possible and also kick it down the road to make sure we’re not speeding up this whole process?
Bernard asks what the timeline of urgency is and Kim says Ocean Rainforest’s next permit would likely be the next upcoming situation where these maps would be useful along with platform Holly’s plan which Mary notes is upcoming
Dominic says we need to make sure we have enough time to get all the data from multiple ports
Zack says as a gillnetter they’re limited already so he is in support of anything that will help not take his fishery out
Garrett echoes the notion that this information is proprietary and we need to be selective in regards to who we share it with
Chris makes a motion for Kim to pursue NOAA funding of the making of these maps using SeaSketch in regard to the channel from point conception to Point Mugu eventually including the channel islands both inside and out but starting with high priority impacted fishermen along the coast and in the channel
Kim says if we don’t get funding from NOAA we could potentially pursue OPC or the Coastal Conservancy, Sea Grant or Cable grant
Paul seconds the motion, Ray, Zack, Bernard, Harry, Michael Harrington, Tony, Dominic, Jeff, and Garrett vote in favor. Ed and Doug abstain. Doug has concerns around data validity with these maps and how much of an impact they will make without this being thoroughly addressed.
10-0-0 Unanimous approval
Oil Rig Decommissioning: We need to give Public Comment on BSEE's Analysis of Decommissioning Oil and Gas Infrastructure off California Coast. The big decision is whether the fishing community supports full removal of all rigs, or sees some benefit in partial removal to turn rigs into reefs. We will gather your input and any questions you have that we can find answers on, and hold a vote on CFSB's position.
Our comments are due on the 10th of next month
Chris makes a recommendation that we think of the impact that the oil industries have had on us all this time and the impact that offshore wind will have on the northern guys. Also don’t forget there’s a huge amount of pipelines to the rigs so the impacts in state waters and shoreside is significant so he is drawing attention to the details because the pipelines first have to come out, so he thinks we should make a strong statement that we take the pipelines out. There have been a lot of analyses done about biodiversity on the platforms but not all platforms have high biomass.
If the oil companies have big cost savings, some of that money should go to commercial fishermen, but only 1% goes to the county, it’s possible that funds could be allocated to fishermen, but not certain. 1% is still a lot of money.
Bernard emphasizes that the city supports us so they should be able to help support us at the county level to get some money.
Ray thinks our response could be formulated in one or two paragraphs, take the pipelines out and leave some of the platform remaining
Paul says they promised to leave it pristine so he thinks it should all be taken out especially for implications on draggers/gillnetters
Gary agrees with this and says all of it should be removed, decommission everything, shellmounds especially
John says we should consider each platform on a case by case basis because the ones that are closer inshore differ in the pros and cons from the deepwater ones.
Dominic fishes extensively in this area and says he probably loses more money every year to the oil companies than everyone else so we need to consider how they’re not following the corridors now. He says it will disturb his operation not just traffic but also from stirring up the bottom. He is concerned about gear loss. Dominic’s concern is that they haven’t put their best foot forward in terms of dealing with fishing gear mitigation so there needs to be clear accountability and it needs to be reasonably easy to get reimbursed and it shouldn't be a whole other job just to get money back
Ray says making the ocean bottom pristine is kind of an oxymoron because “making it pristine” will actually destroy the bottom so maybe there’s a balance to leave stumps and shell mounds vs scraping it all the way down to hard bottom. He says there’s no way that they’ll make the bottom pristine enough for them to even drag so what’s the point in asking that
Mary says it might be possible to remove shell mounds at some of the platforms without a significant impact but it’s complicated, platform to platform, based on factors like how deep the platform is, what the bottom looks like. Also, the pipelines can be at the surface but also below the surface so special equipment will need to be used to haul that out. In the past they had to use special equipment to anchor the vessel at the bottom when pulling pipes that were submerged 3 ft below the bottom, and those anchor grab holes were left behind and caused substantial obstacles and draggers were having big issues, she doesn’t know if that will happen again, but these are things that fishermen might outline in their letters because there are a lot of unknowns in regard to these technical solutions. Mary says what Dominic says it’s true, he has lost a lot of gear and he has to document that and he’s very frustrated understandably so; Vessel traffic is a problem.
Chris circles back to our stance and what position we want to take:
Paul thinks they should remove everything because they promised to make it pristine, however others in the room say it might not be the best idea because in the past they haven’t done a great job about that, in a perfect world this would be the right way to go but it’s risky because they might not do a good job
Ray wonders how many people this actually impacts - Dominic, Jeff Hepp, Morgan, its not that many. where is our efforts spent here to chase after that, how much of our time should be spent attacking this, how much time do we want to spend stirring the pot on this
Bernard says there was one benefit of having the platforms in terms of salmon back in the day and yellowfin
John says we should describe the impacts that we want to avoid so if there’s a dragging impact etc. so the impacts decide what we have to do
Harry suggests that we identify the problem areas from past activity and asks Mary to help communicate this
Nick Tharp says Merit McCrea documented that these zones are transitional rockfish zones so it sounds like the gillnetters and draggers want everything removed but for groundfish guys it might be beneficial
Mary says some platforms are nursery zones and you can find thousands of young rockfish near those platforms. Milton Love did a study and found for Baccachio the platform contributed 1% to the population at large after you account for natural mortality based on the density of fish that did recruit so it seems to be that they are very important for recruitment. Jeremy Classe and some other researchers also found that the platforms are the most productive marine habitat in the world above mangroves and wetlands so that is also a consideration
Kim also wonders about the filter feeder communities on the rigs and how they impact the water quality of the channel
John says he was a tender when they blew up the Cojo rig and every fish within a mile radius died so he thinks maybe it’s better to leave them and cut them off
Kim says that each alternative scenario in the PEIS includes an option to use explosives instead of sawing off. It’s faster so less vessel conflicts, but you lose a lot of marine life
Mary says right now there’s a compensation fund from companies and from the county and once the leasees have decommissioned and left, there will be no more new funds for mitigating gear losses. Ray suggests we ask that there should be some mitigation funds put in there
In summary, the group comes to agreement that our stance should be that we want them to remove everything, but in the absence of that reality then they should bring out their checkbooks and mitigate us for having to work around this for so many years. We should acknowledge that there are benefits to some fisheries and it’s not consistent across all fisheries, pros and cons need to be weighed on a case by case basis.
Harry makes a motion that Ava drafts an email and will send it out for a vote and eventually we will send it to the PEIS by 1/10
If we have time:
Eliza’s update
See notes under the first point regarding Eliza’s statement about their plans.
Their timeline right now is pending installation of the demonstration site in mid-late January 2023
Zack asks if there’s an engineer or someone he can talk to about better geographical data and Eliza says yes it’s a 16 acre cultivation facility with mooring lines that drop down to anchors, she’d be happy to put him in contact with someone to get him the information he is looking for so he can potentially work around the site
Mary asks Eliza if the oil service vessels will go anywhere near the site. Eliza says she does not believe so based on the folks she’s spoken to.
Tony and Ray’s update on slips
We’re waiting for confirmation of the data that the 19% was in fact a requirement.
Mike Nelson emphasizes that we need to have the Coastal Commission confirm that the information he found is still valid so we will coordinate a meeting with Ray, Tony, Mike, etc.
Chris Voss ended the meeting on December 12, 2022 at 5:50pm.