Click on image for a larger view.
The sea floor off the SLO coast is a wonderland of undersea biological
diversity.
Photo by Terry Lilley: Monkey Faced Eel
Photo by Terry Lilley: Fish-eating Anemone - Urticina piscivora
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Why Sanctuary?
By Andrew Christie
Director, Santa Lucia Chapter of the Sierra Club
There can't be anyone left who still needs to hear that we face serious and escalating threats to ocean resources which, once lost, are likely to be irretrievable.
It was out of recognition of that fact - and the fact that California's coast and marine environment generates more than $10 billion annually to the state's economy - that the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, the largest and most geographically diverse National Marine Sanctuary in the United States, was established in 1992, extending from the Marin Headlands to Santa Rosa Creek in San Luis Obispo County. (See map on right.)
The Sanctuary partners with federal, state, and local agencies and a wide variety of stakeholders in its mission to understand and protect the coastal ecosystem and sustain biodiversity.
We believe the coast of San Luis Obispo County, beyond the Sanctuary's arbitrary cut-off point at Cambria, is deserving of the same level of protection, research, and stewardship that the greater Monterey Bay area currently enjoys.
Extending the Sanctuary's southern boundary to include all the waters of SLO county is unfinished business from the time of the Sanctuary's creation. A 1990 proposal to create a Central Coast National Marine Sanctuary (HR 5973, introduced by Leon Panetta) demonstrated that the waters of the Central Coast are a discrete ecological unit with definite boundaries and are accessible and suitable to meet the standards in the National Marine Sanctuaries Act. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration received more than 500 pages of supplementary materials supporting such a designation for the waters of the Central Coast in recognition of their nationally significant oceanographic, geological, biological, and archaeological characteristics.
That Central Coast Sanctuary effort was endorsed by the City Councils of San Luis Obispo, Morro Bay, Pismo Beach, Grover Beach, Paso Robles, and Atascadero, the Morro Coast Audubon Society, Northern Chumash Council, San Luis Obispo Area Coordinating Council, and the Pacific Fishery Management Council. Of primary concern: the reactivation of offshore oil leases. No extraction of oil, gas, or mineral resources is allowed within the waters of a National Marine Sanctuary.
The Bill to establish the Monterey Sanctuary made the cut; ours died. For the last fifteen years, there has been wide public support in San Luis Obispo County for the establishment of a sanctuary to protect the marine resources of our portion of the Central Coast.
"Over the last fifteen years, the need for a marine sanctuary for San Luis Obispo has only grown greater," says Santa Lucia Chapter Chair Karen Merriam. "With the ever-present pressure to resume offshore oil exploration, the need is urgent."
Recognizing that same need in her district, Representative Lynn Woolsey tried to bring several bills forward during the Bush administration to protect the coast of Sonoma County by extending the northern border of the Gulf of Farallones National Marine Sanctuary. Her last attempted bill passed the House in March 2008, but was never brought to a vote in the Senate.
Extension of the MBNMS would enhance public awareness and understanding of marine resources; support scientific research; allow local stakeholders to present a united position on matters of mutual concern (including oil and gas exploration and development, ocean dumping, marine mammal issues, cruise ship activities and other enterprises that use ocean resources); and facilitate a proactive approach to ocean protection.
The extension of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary to include SLO County as its southern unit would occur under a regime of a local Sanctuary Manager, a local Management Plan, and the creation of a local Sanctuary Advisory Committee. It can be accomplished in a much shorter timeframe and with fewer procedural requirements than the creation of a new, separate sanctuary.
It's twenty years overdue. Now is the time to get it done.
Own a business dependent on coastal tourism? Print this out, fill it in, and
send to the Sierra Club, P.O. Box 15755, San Luis Obispo, CA 93406
Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Border Expansion Flyer (Pdf File)
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