| Four area ports join to review reserves
By Steve McCasland
Staff Writer
Four Southern Oregon ocean ports have banded together to provide local community review of proposals to establish marine reserves and wave energy facilities in the state’s territorial waters off southern Coos and Curry counties.
The ports of Bandon, Port Orford, Gold Beach and Brookings formed the organization — the Four Ports Group — with the intent of presenting their analysis of and comments on proposed marine reserves and wave energy sites to the governor’s Ocean Policy Advisory Council before it decides which sites to recommend to the governor.
Site proposals were due by Tuesday, and OPAC’s final recommendations are due to the governor by Nov. 30.
Port of Bandon Commissioner Reg Pullen said, “We certainly respect the right of environmental groups to nominate areas of rich biological potential as marine reserves. But, we reserve the right to examine those sites for their potential economic impacts on coastal communities, and expect that none of those proposals will go through to the governor’s office unless we agree with it.
“My biggest fear is they’ll nominate a marine reserve right in front of our harbor, which could potentially destroy our ability to have a utilized boat basin in Bandon. Right now we have a waiting list for moorage for the first time ever because so many people are moving here for the great sport fishing. If we get a reserve right in front of us, our moorage potential will disappear. We’re fighting for our economic lives on this one.”
Port Manager Gina Dearth also believes coastal communities should have strong input.
“We’re so far removed from the I-5 corridor down here that we need to sort of band together to protect ourselves and make sure we have a huge hand in the selection process,” she said.
Pullen admitted that he’s biased as a sport fisherman who wants to fish where he’s always fished, and wants his descendants to be able to do the same.
“I understand the need for conservation,” he added. “But in this case, marine reserves don’t seem to be anything more than a playpen for researchers. Our access to the ocean is limited by weather conditions and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, which regulates offshore fishing out to three miles. The only advantage of a marine reserve that we can see is that it might draw in funding for research. Our contention is that research is fine, but you can go do that right now. We’d love to have you do it. But don’t make us give up our fishing opportunities so you can do your research.”
Pew Ocean report
In a 2003 report, the Pew Ocean Commission said that marine reserves should be an integral part of all efforts to protect marine ecosystems and coordinate ocean use, and should be implemented immediately in all major marine habitats in U.S. coastal waters.
Pullen said, “All of Pew’s data comes from other places where the ocean is warm and accessible almost year-round. Up here, it’s a cold ocean that can only be accessed for a relatively few days a year. It’s really apples and oranges.
“We’ve developed a much more responsible stewardship of the ocean since the big trawlers were banned some years ago. Recreational and commercial fishermen want to protect the resource for the long-term for future generations.”
Our Ocean
More than 50 citizens attended an Our Ocean Coalition meeting at the Bandon Public Library on Sept. 17 to discuss marine reserve planning.
Pullen has attended a couple of the group’s recent meetings, including the one in Bandon.
“(During one of the meetings), Our Ocean suggested that we could go along with them on establishing marine reserves — or they will use the initiative referendum process to put it on the ballot, and they believe that the majority of Willamette Valley voters will support marine reserves.
“These people are being paid by out-of-state environmental interests to convince us that marine reserves are good things. They don’t come from our local communities and they weren’t elected or chosen to represent us. Whereas, we are elected by the public to serve the public interest. So, there’s a big difference in where we’re coming from. It’s not what I’d call democracy at its best.”
The Port of Bandon is forming a subcommittee of local ocean users and other interested persons to work in cooperation with the Four Ports Group. Members agreeing to serve on the subcommittee as of early this week included Dianne Williams of Bandon Bait & Tackle; Wayne Butler, representing charter/sport fishers; Mike Lane, representing commercial fishing; and Mike Claassen, Bandon City Council.
Pullen and representatives from the other three ports plan to address OPAC at its meeting in Reedsport on Oct. 7 to seek formal recognition of the Four Ports Group.
How much influence?
Coos County Commissioner and OPAC member John Griffith said he believes the Four Ports Group and a similar entity at Charleston “are what the governor apparently had in mind as community groups that would review marine reserve proposals for their social and economic effects.”
Asked how much impact the groups could have on OPAC decision-making, he said, “A subset of OPAC members are voting members and, as such, are free to vote as they please. … The votes could be all over the place.
“But, these groups will have influence,” Griffith said. “If they see a proposal as harmful to one or more coastal communities, the influence would be large because the governor said that reserves will not have significant impacts to the economy or coastal communities.”
He said it is worth nothing that environmentalists “have been real dodgy about bringing their proposals to community-based groups like these. On Sept. 15, at the initiation of Oregon Sea Grant, a couple of the proposers brought forward their proposals for the South Coast. But, they didn’t come at their own initiation. So, I have the sense that their plan was to maybe make a few contacts with actual stakeholders, but mostly to just drop their proposals on OPAC on today’s (Sept. 30) deadline. Then that leaves OPAC to have to vote on them before Nov. 1 without that link of community-based group review that the governor thought was critical.”
Griffith added that he believes there’s “no relevant science that’s persuasive” that marine reserves are needed in Oregon’s nearshore waters.
“Even if you put any credibility in conservation biology and ecological findings, none of them account for the level of regulation we already have here,” he said. “We don’t have bottom-contact trawling here, or open sewage dumping, or horrible industrial-chemical pollution like they do in some Asian and tropical countries. So, we’re beginning from circumstances that are not found in most of these other places where they’ve tested marine reserves. When problems have been found, commercial fishermen in Oregon have been very active in trying to address it and make it go away.”
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