Plan for marine sanctuary expansion set to move forward Thursday

The long-awaited plan to expand the Gulf of the Farallones and Cordell Bank national marine sanctuaries has cleared one of its last hurdles, setting off early celebrations among ocean advocates and others who have pushed for the protections.

Formal notice of the plan was set for publication today in the Federal Register, a step that triggers a 45-day congressional review period after which newly drawn sanctuary boundaries and revised regulations for the adjoining sanctuaries off the North Coast go into effect. The expansion is poised to extend federal protections along a stretch of coastline from Bodega Head to Manchester Beach in Mendocino County, more than doubling the combined area of the sanctuaries.

The expansion reflects a nearly 40-year effort to block oil drilling off the Sonoma Coast: It permanently bans any energy or mineral exploration or extraction within sanctuary boundaries, protecting a productive habitat fed by a nutrient-rich upwelling off of Point Arena upon which wildlife depend.

Given a proliferation of oil-drilling plans off the Atlantic Coast and political attacks on longstanding environmental regulation, the timing could not be more critical, said Richard Charter, a senior fellow at the Ocean Foundation and a veteran defender of the North Coast.

“This is so significant, because at a time when nature is threatened as never before by Congress as we’re seeing right now, the public and their elected officials have sort of harvested the final outcome of three decades of trying to make democracy work, and that means that our regional economy that’s based on a clean coast is going to last forever,” Charter said.

Charter said the Sonoma Coast has been at particular risk since 2008, when an annually renewed moratorium on offshore oil drilling was allowed to expire under then-President George W. Bush after 27 consecutive years.

Two years later, the Obama administration cleared the way for oil and natural gas exploration in areas off the Atlantic and Alaskan coasts, and in the Gulf of Mexico.

“We got this protection just in the nick of time,” Charter said.

The federal notice on the Farallones and Cordell Bank sanctuary expansion includes a provision delaying by an additional six months the effective date for sewage discharge regulations as they apply to the Coast Guard, which raised last-minute concerns about its ability to operate in the sanctuaries because of limited storage in some of its vessels.

The six-month delay also provides time during which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will work with the Coast Guard to resolve other concerns about flexibility for live-fire training exercises in sanctuary waters, as well as other issues the agency recently brought up.

The Coast Guard is the chief enforcement body for national marine sanctuaries, in addition to handling search and rescue, drug interdiction, surveillance and other functions.

But while sanctuary rules provide exemptions for Department of Defense activities deemed essential to the nation’s defense, they don’t apply to the Coast Guard, an arm of the Department of Homeland Security.

The unresolved issues have been a sticking point for weeks, stalling publication of the expansion plans for about six weeks.

The public and any stakeholders will have an opportunity to comment on any future solutions negotiated by NOAA and the Coast Guard, NOAA said.

You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan at 521-5249 or mary.?callahan@pressdemocrat.com. ?On Twitter @MaryCallahanB.