MBNMS SAC Meeting Minutes October 3rd, 2003

Channel Islands NMS: Chris Mobley
Gulf of the Farallones NMS: Ed Ueber-ABSENT
Cordell Bank NMS: Dan Howard-ABSENT
Elkhorn Slough NERR: Becky Christensen-ABSENT
Monterey Bay NMS: William J. Douros

Eric Gobler-CA EPA
Harriet Mittledorf-Citizen At-Large
Ruth Vreeland-AMBAG

APPROVAL OF June 26-27 and July/August DRAFT meeting notes

MOTION: (Passed)
The SAC adopted the minutes from the June 26-27, 2003 Sanctuary Advisory Council meeting, with the following changes:

• Ron Massengill was in attendance on June 26, not absent.
• Change the date on the second day to read June 27, not June 26

Motion introduced by Dan Haifley, seconded by Dave Ebert
(Vote: 13 in favor, 0 opposed (unanimous))

MOTION: (Passed)
The SAC adopted the minutes from the July 30-August 1 and August 22, 2003 Sanctuary Advisory Council meeting, with no changes.

Motion introduced by Dave Ebert, seconded by Ron Massengill (Vote: 13 in favor, 0 opposed (unanimous))

Bill Douros swore in the new CA EPA representatives, Russ Jeffries and Eric Gobler.

SELECTION OF SUBCOMMITTEE FOR SEATS UP IN 2004

The MBNMS must conduct recruitments for the following primary and alternate representatives on the Advisory Council: Agriculture, At-large (two seats), Business, Conservation, Fishing, Recreation, Research. All of the seats not up for expiration in 2004 were asked to participate in the selection subcommittee. Those participating will be: Stephanie Harlan (AMBAG), Mike Laffen (At-large), Pat Clark-Gray (Education), Paul Reilly (CA Dept of Fish & Game), Russ Jeffries (CA EPA) and Frank Degnan (Diving) were asked by Stephanie Harlan to meet and give their recommendations to Bill on the new seats for February 2004.

WELCOME FROM THE COUNTY OF SAN LUIS OBISPO

Greg Haas, District Director for Congresswoman Lois Capps, welcomed the Advisory Council to the Congresswoman’s district. Greg commented that he would like to see more representation from the southern region during the 2004 recruitment.

Shirley Bianchi, Supervisor for San Luis Obispo County, welcomed the Advisory Council to her district. She thanked the Advisory Council for the opportunity to form the Marine Interest Group.

Ruth Vreeland, speaking as an AMBAG representative as well as a private citizen, expressed that local government plays an important role in what the Advisory Council does. She also spoke about having a small visitor center in Monterey.

Bill Johnson, gave a presentation on the Friends of the Elephant Seal (FES). He invited the Advisory Council to visit the office/bookstore, which is in the same complex as the meeting room. Bill presented the Advisory Council with some very interesting facts: there are about 10,000 elephant seal in the San Simeon colony, 2600 pups were born this year, which is a 26% increase from last year, FES docents talk to approximately 80,000-100,000 visitors a year. He informed the Advisory Council of the boardwalk that is currently being built by the California Conservation Corps, to allow for safer viewing of the elephant seal. Completion of the boardwalk will be the end of October with a ribbon cutting ceremony on November 7th.

John Bugati, site manager, gave a presentation on the Piedras Blancas Lighthouse. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) claimed ownership of the lighthouse in 2000 when the United States Coast Guard gave it up. BLM has making infrastructure changes and put in about $125,000 worth of living/administrative improvements and water system improvements. Two major activities they have undertaken are the native plant restoration and a tour program. Currently, tickets to visit the lighthouse are sold out until February when the contract is up. John stated that he would like to invite the Advisory Council to view the lighthouse someday.

Bill Douros explained the process for the NMSA reauthorization and what role the Advisory Council could play in it. The NMSP is seeking input from the Advisory Council on the proposed NMSA reauthorization. The Advisory Council has two options: they could choose to make no comments or decide to make proposed changes. If the Advisory Council chose to make changes, they would have to be passed at the December 5, 2003 meeting in order to get their comments to Headquarters by the December 20, 2003 deadline. The Advisory Council could work through a letter at the December 5th meeting together, or a subcommittee could meet and put forth recommended changes at the December 5th meeting for the Advisory Council’s approval.

After some discussion the Advisory Council agreed to not develop a working group and a discussion of the NMSA reauthorization would be placed on the December 5th agenda for one hour. The Advisory Council stated that they may wait until later in the NMSA reauthorization to make any comments.

Sean Morton gave a brief presentation on the next steps for the MBNMS staff and the Advisory Council regarding the Joint Management Plan Review. Bill thanked the Advisory Council for the comments they provided and let them know that he intended to incorporate 100% of the changes they requested, and if not, staff would let them know.

Stephanie Harlan opened this discussion with the suggestion that the Advisory Council set up a subcommittee to develop a process addressing the addition of new members to the Advisory Council. This subcommittee would not address any particular seats that would be added. Bill briefly reminded the Advisory Council that the National Marine Sanctuaries Act states that certain Advisory Council’s (those for sites designated after November 1992, thus, not the MBNMS) should be no bigger than 15 voting members the NMSP encourages those sites who can statutorily have larger Advisory Councils to nonetheless limit the Advisory Council to 20 voting members. He explained that the subcommittee’s process needed to consider an alternative that may add a new seat(s) but nonetheless keep the Advisory Council to 20 members (its current size).

Kaitilin Gaffney asked Mike Murray, Council Coordinator for CINMS, if their Advisory Council had addressed the issue of adding seats to their Advisory Council and what their process was. They had received several proposals to add several seats to the Advisory Council and kept in mind the cap on Advisory Councils. He stated that they will be adding two new seats soon, a recreational fishing seat and a Chumash/Native American seat. To add these seats, they will be removing one of the Citizen At-Large seats. The recreational fishing seat was a commercial fishing seat, but they used one of the alternates to make up the recreational fishing seat. They now have one consumptive and one non-consumptive fishing seat.

Stephanie asked for volunteers to create the subcommittee and bring back a recommendation to the Advisory Council at a future meeting. Deborah Streeter(Chair), Dan Haifley, Harriet Mitteldorf, Ruth Vreeland, Peter Grenell, Dave Ebert, Chris Harrold and Kaitilin Gaffney. Stephanie commented that she would ask Tami Grove if she would be interested in volunteering for the subcommittee.

Holly Price, Resource Protection Coordinator, gave an update on the most recent MPA working group meeting held on September 25th. The group will be meeting again on October 17th. Their hope is to be present a recommendation to the Advisory Council at the December 5th meeting. Paul Reilly, CDFG alternate, gave a brief update on the status of the MLPA process.

Holly also gave a brief update on the Coast Highway Management Plan, which the Sanctuary has been working on jointly with CALTRANS. The plan should be in the signature process within the next couple of months.

Andrew DeVogelaere, Research Coordinator, presented each Advisory Council member with a copy of the Davidson Seamount CD that was created for educational purposes. Andrew demonstrated the CD’s many different features. The CD’s were very well received; several people wanted extra copies to distribute to local schools and friends.

Scott Kathey, Regulatory Coordinator, gave an overview of task the Advisory Council gave the Motorized Personal Watercraft working group at the July/August meeting. The working group did not reach consensus as to whether or not NOAA should allow a volunteer rescue patrol at the Mavericks surf break in Half Moon Bay. Scott provided the Advisory Council with a handout addressing the points that the group did reach consensus on as necessary steps should NOAA consider authorizing a volunteer rescue patrol. Dan Haifley, Recreation primary, commented that the working group has reached the end; the working group cannot go any further. Peter Grenell, San Mateo Harbormaster and Harbor primary, agreed with Dan and suggested this issue should not be pursued futher.

The Advisory Council reached consensus that there is no need to make any modification to the Motorized Personal Watercraft proposed action plan for private rescue groups to be allowed at Mavericks.

Michele Roest, Education and Outreach Specialist, gave a summary of a research dive conducted on the shipwreck Montebello on September 22 – 25. The archeological research team included Robert Schwemmer from CINMS, John Foster from State Parks, and Jack Hunter from CalTrans, as well as Dave Lott, Jean de Marginac, Erica Burton and Michele Roest from MBNMS. The Montebello sank 1.6 nm outside the southern sanctuary boundary in 1941 with a hull full of heavy crude oil.

The expedition was able to determine that no oil was leaking from the hull. It also found new parts of the wreck, including discovery of the masts, not observed in a previous dive in 1996. Better GPS points of the wreck location and orientation were achieved as well as a more comprehensive species list of the fish and invertebrates observed on and around the wreck.

A press event was held after the expedition, with good coverage by local newspapers and television.

Stephanie Harlan announced the three Thursday night lecture series at Long Marine Lab Seymour Discovery Center. The lecture series consisted of speakers such as Leon Panetta, Julie Packard and several local scientists.

Ron Massengill commented on the drainage pipes that were removed at Fort Ord, which had been a past priority of the Conservation Working Group and was toured by the Advisory Council.

Kirk Schmidt announced the EcoFarm celebration “Farms to Fishes” in January. It will be hosted by Passionfish, a sustainable seafood organization.

Pat Clark-Gray commented on the CA Coastal Cleanup. She passed around the Turkey Vulture patch that was handed out to those Boy Scouts that participated in the cleanup.

Stephanie Harlan gave a brief update on the Santa Cruz Sanitation District. The Sanitation District was fined by the RWQCB for two spills that occurred in Capitola. Part of the fine settlement resulted in the Sanitation District donating money to the Department of Fish and Game to be used for grants for water quality programs. Specifics on the programs were not available at that time. The Sanitation District is looking at all of their old sewage lines and are trying to come up with a plan to fix them.

Paul Reilly announced that CALCOFI is having its conference this year on November 5th at Asilomar. This year’s theme will be invertebrate fisheries.

Bill announced for those who did not know, the Fun Spot was chosen as the Sanctuary Visitor Center site. Bill explained that the local foundation, the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Foundation, is not interested in helping to raise money, but the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation is.

Chris Harrold told everyone to mark their calendars for the Sanctuary Currents Symposium on Saturday, March 6th, 2004.

Don Maruska, Marine Interest Group facilitator, gave an overview of the Marine Interest Group (MIG) and what has been taking place at the meetings. The group has met approximately 20 times over the past year. He expressed the shared hopes of those involved in the MIG. On October 15th, the MIG has invited several Advisory Council members to attend their meeting for a question/answer session. Several members of the MIG gave brief presentations/testimonies to the Advisory Council. There was no action taken by the Advisory Council on this matter. The Advisory Council thanked the MIG members for all their hard work.

Cavalier Oceanfront Resort, San Simeon

The meeting adjourned at 3:50