Barbary Coast Newsletter- September

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News and Announcements

Contact Carol to reserve your campsite

CENCAL Update: I've been to a couple of their meetings to express our concern that we are not being informed as to what CENCAL is doing.

What is being proposed, is to run a mini-Odessey via e-mail. It will keep everyone abrest of the behind the scenes, story behind the story. Their website is constantly being updated, so check it out again if you haven't been there lately. I'm missing this month's CENCAL meeting, acatually to get this newsletter out before Oct, so I can't tell you how far they've gotten with it. The news e-mail will consist of current events and strategies (inside info not for the general public) being used to take on some of the powers that be. Who knows, I might be the one to actually put it together. There's a lot going on and fun stuff too ( I still have no idea what underwater hockey is). Their meeting is open to the public, at Baker's Square Restaurant in San Leandro on the last Wednesday of the month.

What I saw at the last meeting:

The last meeting (August) there was a concern about not bargaining away diver's rights, by becoming part of a larger and more powerful coalition. Although the more powerful coalition sounds good, they might always be for you, but then can say "and we speak for all recreational divers since they are part of our coalition". This is actually happening with an organization called COOL- Coalition of Organizations for Ocean Life. Cool's mission statement is to create MLPA's or Marine Life Protectin Areas. This means not even spearfishing. Hence the " wait a minute, I can't sign on to that.." Sierra Club, Pacific Grove tidepool Coaltion, Friends of Ed Ricketts, and the Ocean Wilderness Network also didn't sign on.

There was talk of how bad it is with the DFG and the process of the Marine Life Management Act. In a nutshell, the state is broke and DFG is getting it's budget cut. A plan was put forth to buy out the fishermen, but there is no money for the state to do it. Someone spoke to Sen Farns about getting money from the feds. Farns said "forget about money from the Feds".

One of the main points of attack seems,and it's complicated, probably take a year for me to understand all the nuances, that in the DFG code it says the resources belong to the public, which means us. If there is anything leftover, then the commercial fishemen can have it. The problem is, there really isn't much leftover, so now we have bag limits to ensure the commercial fishermen can get a haul, which goes against " the oceans belong to the public".

My head was spinning pretty quickly as more things were brought out. You've got Feds overseeing some aspects, State overseeing others, both overseeing the same thing withmunicipalities thrown in, (Monterey just lost a court challange whaich says they DON'T own everything down to 60 ft), neither one wanting to oversee other things that should have some oversight. Monterey, Farallones and Cordell Banks are coming up with their next 10 year plan, MLPA( Marine Life Protection Act) " Regional Working Groups" meetings, Recreational Abalone Advisory Committee meetings, Nearshore Fishery Management Plan (NFMP), and of course the " Waterbag Scheme" where a company from Alaska wants to dig a pipe under the Gualala river, fill a huge bag, and sell the water to San Diego. Check out www.gualalariver.org and look at the "Water Export" part of the website. They also are fighting some timber barons...

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updated 9/28/02