Commissioners clash on proper funding for Marine Life Protection Act
By Ed Zieralski March 5, 2009, 2:51 p.m.It was only a matter of time before Dan Richards of Upland and Michael Sutton of Monterey squared off about the Marine Life Protection Act.
After all, when one commissioner, Sutton, is totally beholding to the environmental community, and the other, Richards, is a self-made man who owns his own real estate business, well, you see the big difference right there.
It’s like the difference between one man who has his head in an aquarium, Sutton, who happens to work for the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and the other, Richards, who lives his life in the real water, the real estate world with sharks, bad economics and other realities.
There are many, many more differences, but let’s just start with that main theme.
Sutton, like Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his state Natural Resources Agency secretary Mike Chrisman, don’t care that the state faces the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
So what if the Department of Fish and Game can’t afford to buy enough trout food to feed its newly hatched fry, fingerlings and sub-catchable trout.
So what if there’s not enough money to pay game wardens, key staff people to do research.
And finally, so what if the Marine Life Protection Act was so poorly funded it had to be rescued three times, the most recent by environmentalists using over $18 million of the Resources Legacy Fund Foundation’s money. The estimate by the Department of Fish and Game is that it will cost the state $30 million to $40 million a year to manage, enforce and do public outreach for the state’s network of marine protected areas. This, in a state that can’t afford to buy trout food for its hatchery fish.
Sutton and Chrisman, who represent Gov. Schwarzenegger, just want the MLPA to go forward. Worry about the money later. Let the next Governor, the next resource secretary and the next fish and game commissioner worry about funding this underfunded, boondoggle of an act.
Richards represents Chrisman and Schwarzenegger too, but he’s not afraid to be his own man. He’s not afraid to ask questions. He’s not afraid to ask for data to show that the state will have the money and resources to cover this extensive network of marine protected areas. He wants justification and reasons why the state needs to shut down both recreational and commercial fishing in more than 20 percent of the state’s key fishing areas along its coastline.
Today, when Department of Fish and Game deputy director Sonke Mastrup said there was a delay in the state getting the environmental impact report for the North Central Coast Region of the MLPA, it set off the battle of words between Sutton and Richards.
It was a joy to watch these two square off. Truly, after two days of MLPA meetings where most of the people there seem to be afraid to say anything negative about the MLPA process, it was a pleasure to hear Richards step up and demand answers.
You can go to the Commission Web site at
www.fgc.ca.gov and watch the meeting and see it for yourself.
Richards and Sutton don't back down one bit and show their opposite views on these marine protected areas.
Sutton said the state is going “above and beyond” anything it has ever done to check the socio-economic impact of the MLPA and how the marine protected areas will be managed and enforced. He just can’t believe that the state would spend so much time and effort on this.
Does Sutton not realize this is the biggest resource project this state has ever undertaken? This isn’t about changing the minimum size limit of largemouth bass in Lake Hodges or going to barbless hooks for trout in some creek in the Sierra.
This really is about ruining the lives of some commercial fishermen, forever changing the commercial and recreational fishing landscape of California by forming many unnecessary protected areas. It’s the Desert Protection Act, just add salt. And it’s all being done in the name of environmentalism.
Richards said everyone assumes the North Central Coast Region marine protected areas will be passed by the Commission. But it's not the slam dunk many think it is. He said the Commission will get four options from the Blue Ribbon Task Force and choose one. It’s not a done deal.
That's interesting because when Samantha Murray of the Ocean Concervancy took time out of her busy day Wednesday to warn the hard-working members of the South Coast stakeholders group to reach middle ground on marine protected areas or the Blue Ribbon Task Force would do it for them, many thought she let her arrogance get the best of her. As distasteful and as unnecessary as that was, here's a thought. Wouldn't it be something if the state Fish and Game Commission stepped up and finally put some common sense into this overly emotional process that is being steered and directed by the environmental community. Wouldn't it be something if the state Fish and Game Commission used wisdom instead of emotion and picked the least amount of marine closures that will do the least amount of damage to fishermen's lives?
“We need to know exactly how much this will cost,” Richards said. “The funding must be in place.”
Richards pointed out that the state isn’t doing an adequate enough job on the baseline work it needs to do on the existing Central Coast marine protected areas because there isn’t sufficient funding. The Central Coast was the first to get the network of the MLPA's marine protected areas, so the fact the state isn’t monitoring them correctly is indicative of things to come at future marine protected areas.
“We’ll get four different proposals (for marine protected areas for the North Central Coast) from the Blue Ribbon Task Force,” Richards said. “I want to know what it will cost us. Right now we don’t have the money and we don’t have the personnel.”
Richards offered the best analogy yet to describe what the MLPA process has been for California.
“It’s like buying a $500,000 house and worrying about how to pay for it later,” Richards said. “We all know what that has done to our country.”
Sutton’s reply was that if the Commission waited for reports on the socio-economic impact and cost for all issues related to fishing and hunting the Commission would never get anything done.
“We have no guarantee that there will be money for enforcement or research of anything right now, but I won’t stand for the MLPA to be held up on those reasons,” Sutton said.
That’s the way it is now.
So what if there’s no money, not enough wardens to enforce the areas, not enough researchers to do the proper work, not enough trout food to feed the hatchery fish.
Close these ocean waters off to as many commercial and recreational fishermen as you can and put more Californians out of work, out of their homes, and, eventually, out of this state.
That’s a great message from our state resource and political leaders. Watch them as they bait their political solution to catch a complex fisheries issue.
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