Point Arena MLPA Showdown: Grassroots Enviros Versus Schwarzenegger and Big Green

Point Arena MLPA Showdown: Grassroots Enviros Versus Schwarzenegger and Big Green

by Dan Bacher

Point Arena, a small fishing town located off the gorgeous Mendocino County coast south of Fort Bragg, is the location of a fierce battle between local grassroots environmentalists and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and "Big Green" groups based out of Washington D.C. and San Francisco over Schwarzenegger's fast track implementation of the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA).

Schwarzenegger, who has presided over the unprecedented collapse of Central Valley salmon populations, green sturgeon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, Sacramento splittail and other Delta fish populations by allowing massive increases in water exports out of the imperiled estuary to corporate agribusiness, has joined with "environmental" NGOs (non governmental organizations) to kick John Lewallen, a sustainable seaweed harvester and environmentalist with impeccable credentials, off the water.

Schwarzenegger's staff and his environmental collaborators, including the Ocean Conservancy and Natural Resources Defense Council, favor the IPA, "Integrated Preferred Alternative," that would stop Lewallen from harvesting seaweed off Point Arena, as well as prevent sustainable abalone diving and fishing for rockfish and lingcod in this area under the guise of "marine protection."

"Well-intentioned people with the big foundation-funded environmental organizations have been duped by the MLPA process," said Lewallen. "Local environmentalists and fishermen are opposing the no-take reserves, including the one off Point Arena, that threaten to shut down coastal communities. It is vital to get this process slowed down so that we can focus instead on stopping offshore drilling and other environmental problems on the North Coast."

The Governor and his allies face a formidable adversary in trying to remove Lewallen from harvesting seaweed in Sea Lion Cove, now scheduled to be a Marine Reserve that permanently prohibits people from taking any food from the inter tidal zone and the ocean. Lewallen, who lives with his wife Barbara in Philo in the Anderson Valley, has been an environmental leader on the Mendocino County coast for over thirty years. He was a founding member of the Ocean Protection Coalition and California Green Party. He has been a key organizer in the fight to stop offshore oil drilling and to stop clearcutting of redwood forests that provide critical habitat to coho salmon and steelhead habitat on the North Coast.

He is also a greatly respected environmental author. Among his published writings include the book Ecology of Devastation: Indochina" (Penguin Books, 1972), and he is co-author with James Robertson of "The Grass Roots Primer" (Sierra Club Books, 1975), a manual for local-level environmental action containing the story of Wes Chesbro, leader of a group that stopped the Butler Valley Dam on the Mad River in Humboldt County.

Responding to the latest political challenge to their sustainable way of life by the Schwarzenegger administration, Lewallen and other local environmentalists have banded together with recreational anglers, commercial fishermen and local community activists to stop this corporate greenwashing campaign by Schwarzenegger, the worst-ever Governor for fish and the environment in California history. Lewallen has organized a "Sustainable Fisheries Reality Tour" on Saturday, June 13, off Point Arena to show the press and public the areas that will be closed to seaweed harvesting and fishing if Schwarzenegger’s plans become a reality.

"The hosts of the tour are the Recreational Fishing Alliance, Mendocino County Fish & Game Advisory Committee, Mendocino Seaweed Stewardship Alliance, local fishermen and seaweed harvesters - the people who bring you ocean food and protect the wild, clean ocean," said Lewallen.

The event will start with an "Early Riser Special," from 9-10:30 A.M. at Lighthouse Point Road, Stornetta Public Lands, featuring abalone diving and seaweed harvesting on the minus tide. Lewallen will talk about thirty years of sea palm trimming at the proposed new "Sea Lion Rock Marine Reserve," a no-take zone, while Jim Martin will speak on sustainable abalone and the MLPA.

After the "early riser" events, the Point Arena City Hall at 11 A.M. will feature a reception with music by Sharon Garner and the Billy Schieve Trio, seafood, DVD shows and exhibits, and lots of information about how Schwarzenegger's fast track MLPA process will devastate local communities while doing little or nothing to restore fish habitat or improve water quality.

From noon to 3 p.m. at City Hall, community members and officials will speak about the impact of the so-called "Marine Protected Areas" scheduled to be adopted in August by the California State Fish and Game Commission.

The lead speakers include Craig Bell, Mendocino County Fish and Game Advisory Commissioner, Jim Martin, West Coast Director of the Recreational Fishing Alliance and Mendocino County Fish and Game Advisory Commissioner, Allan Jacobs, community activist, and Lewallen and his wife, Barbara Stephens-Lewallen, and Larry Knowles, from the Mendocino Seaweed Stewardship Alliance. Other community members impacted by new proposed MLPA "Marine Protected Areas" will speak out against the MLPA process, which is rife with conflict of interest, the corruption of democratic principles and mission creep.

At 1 p.m. David Colfax, Fifth District Supervisor of Mendocino County, and Fred Euphrat, Principal Consultant for the CA Legislative Joint Committee on Fisheries & Aquaculture, will speak. A press conference will be held at 2 p.m.

Admission to all events is free, but contributions to cover expenses will be accepted. For more information, contact: John & Barbara Stephens-Lewallen, (707) 895-2996, babs&mcn.org, http://www.seaweed.net.

Schwarzenegger's MLPA Process: Conflicts of Interests and Mission Creep Under Investigation

The MLPA, passed by the Legislature in 1999, under Arnold Schwarzenegger has expanded from a $250,000 process as originally authorized to a $35,000,000 boondoggle that threatens thousands of North coast jobs and dozens of communities. Senate Majority Leader Dean Florez (D-Shafter) in March called for a hearing investigating conflict of interest in the MLPA process, while the Central Coast Fisheries Conservation Coalition (CCFCC) has filed a complaint with the Fair Political Practices Commission over conflict of interest in Fish and Game Commissioner Michael Sutton's votes on the Fish and Game Commission.

Sutton was previously employed by the Packard Foundation, which funds the Resources Legacy Fund Foundation, the organization that is funding the MLPA Process. He currently works for Julie Packard's Monterey Bay Aquarium. The CCFCCl is charging Sutton with conflict of interest in making decisions regarding the MLPA that could benefit his employer. (For more information, read this excellent article in the Sacramento News and Review, by Allistair Bland, http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/content?oid=1009887).

Lewallen, in testimony before the State Legislature this spring, called for an investigation into the role of Catherine Reheis-Boyd, CEO and Chief of Staff for the Western States Petroleum Association, a member of the five-member MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force that crafts the MLPA proposals to the Fish and Game Commission. "Is it coincidence that the Point Arena Basin offshore from Point Arena is the area of highest oil industry interest in Northern California, and the only tract here now open to Minerals Management Service offshore oil leasing process?" Lewallen asked.

While investigations proceed, the Governor, his staff and his environmental collaborators continue to praise the MPLA Process for being "open and transparent," a claim that grassroots environmentalists, fishermen and North Coast residents strongly contest.

In a recent article in Terrain, published out of the Ecology Center in Berkeley, Elly Hopper quotes Kaitilin Gaffney, Central Coast program manager for the Ocean Conservancy as stating, "I would say the MLPA is clearly the most participatory and inclusive process that I've ever participated in."

"Yet some local stakeholders who use the ocean as a subsistence food source and were not selected for a decision- making position feel steamrolled," Hopper continued. "Jim Martin, the West Coast Regional Director of the Recreational Fishing Alliance, who has been involved with various MLPA plans for ten years, feels that the process wasn't as inclusive as it's been made out to be: 'That is complete BS. It's open in the sense that there are a lot of meetings to go to and a lot of things to read and speakers to listen to. But when it comes to public comment, you get one minute.'" (http://ecologycenter.org/terrain/issues/summer-2009/sea-combers)

On May 15, Jim Kellogg, Fish and Game Commission Member, convinced the Commission to send a letter to the Governor and Resources Secretary Mike Chrisman asking how the state, at a time that game wardens are being laid off and the state's budget deficit grows daily, is going to to pay for the management and enforcement of the MLPA process.

"The Governor's budgets have consistently provided support for MLPA," Chrisman responded in a letter. "This funding is but a small part of the more than $34.2 million that has been allocated statewide by a partnership of state agencies and foundations. Although we share the concerns expressed by California's difficult economic constraints, the public-private partnership established to help fund the MLPA process will help ensure its success."

However, Barbara Lewallen-Stephens strongly criticized Chrisman's response, taking him to task for claiming there was money for the MLPA process when essential services are being cut.

"The state is closing state parks, taking away jobs and cutting health care and here they are coming up with a lot of monies to take away even more jobs," Lewallen-Stephens questioned. "Where is this money coming from and why is the Governor saying we are broke when this amount of funds is available to shut down coastal communities?"

Local environmentalists and fishermen on California's North Coast see Schwarzenegger's fast track MLPA process for what it really is - a brazen attempt by the Governor and his collaborators to kick local seaweed harvesters and fishermen off the water in order to clear the way for offshore oil drilling, wave energy projects and corporate aquaculture. There is nothing "green" about the Governor's corrupt MLPA process.