NRDC, Sierra Club Propose to Close Coast From Mendocino to Caspar

NRDC, Sierra Club Collaborate With Schwarzenegger to Close Coast From Mendocino to Caspar

by Tomas DiFiore

At last night's Mendocino Ocean Community Alliance meeting in Fort Bragg, Bill Lemos, the NRDC consultant who wears a hat by a different constituent user group each time he appears anywhere to speak about Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA), and who has been instrumental in both slowing the MOCA group's ability to accomplish anything from the onset, continues now to rush to submit a MPA external array proposal of 'their' own and rejects community discussion!

Each group within MOCA that is preparing an external array for the Tri-County workgroup, has brought their array up for discussion at MOCA meetings. The last MOCA meeting was held in Albion. Maps were drawn by ocean seafood providers. At the nearly 4 hour meeting, almost 30 people were present and conversed with each other. Lemos left before the meeting was half over.

At last night's meeting Bill Lemos cut short any discussion by saying "discussion is not an agenda item" while pressing everyone to move forward, and rejected the group's offer to come to Albion on this Saturday with most MOCA members to hammer out agreements on external MPA arrays.

Albion Harbor Regional Alliance has been hosting the digital Marine Map efforts to complement efforts by Local Ocean Food Providers to find acceptable common ground with Underwater Park Advocates who have their own agenda, not necessarily marine life protection in it's orientation.

Last night's proposal by Bill Lemos speaking on behalf of the NRDC, Sierra Club, and Conservation First! is big! It closes access to seafood harvested in coastal waters from Mendocino to Caspar. All forms of extractive use would be banned except Salmon fishing. The closure as planned, is a SMR from the mouth of Big River north to Caspar, with a SMCA component to allow Salmon fishing. For more information, call Tomas DiFiore, 707-937-4378