The Oregon legislature has just passed a bill that will create three new marine reserves on the Oregon Coast including off Cape Falcon in north Tillamook County. The Oregon House of Representatives passed the SB 1510 by 57-2 on Feb. 21. The Oregon State Senate had approved the bill earlier in the month by a 25-5 margin.

The bill charges the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to begin to develop plans to implement the no-fishing reserves at Cape Falcon, Cascade Head and Cape Perpetua.

The bill states that the marine reserves will not go into effect until ODFW has collected a baseline of data, so the effects of the restrictions on local recreational and commercial fishers may not be immediate. Linda Buell, co-chair of the Fisherman Advisory Committee for Tillamook (FACT), said that the research will not be complete for years, which means that the bill will take a long time to be implemented.

The ODFW has promised to start at Cape Perpetua and work their way north, she said. So they probably wont be to Cape Falcon for 4-5 years.

Buell said that she considers the break a bit of a breather. She said that she hopes that the bill will be amended to include a sunset clause.

Without a sunset clause, if its not working, there is nothing that can be done about it, she said.

Buell, who owns Garibaldi Charters with her husband Mick, said that for fishermen the process was like being blackmailed into supporting the plan with the threat of a ballot initiative for marine reserves, which would presumably have been more numerous and much larger than the ones created by the recent bill.

Buell said that fishermen are still afraid that environmental groups will push for a ballot initiative that would create more expansive marine reserves.

We still dont know if there is going to be a ballot initiative or not, she said.

Susan Allen, director of Our Ocean one of the organizations that pushed for the marine reserves legislation, said that her organization is not currently seeking a ballot initiative for expanded marine reserves. 

We currently have no plans to do anything like that, she said.

Allen said the wide margin the bill passed by shows how much support the idea of marine reserves has.

I think the fact that it passed by 57-2 shows that Oregon respects the marine reserves idea, she said.

Allen described the marine reserves as a savings account that will help make sure that marine resources are available for future generations. Allen said that she hopes the marine reserves will have a reseeding effect that will help provide for future needs outside of the reserves.

All of the sites were evaluated for their use, she said, the state looked for areas that would minimize economic impact. We were very conservative with how we selected the areas.

Allen said that the reserves will need time before their benefit becomes apparent.

We have very slow growing species off the Oregon coast, she said. It will take a while to see results.

Allen said that the goal of the reserves is to increase the size, diversity and resilience of marine life. 

I think that the way Oregon has done this is unique because it is a bottom up approach, she said.

However, Tillamook County Commissioners Tim Josi, Mark Labhart, and Charles Hurliman issued a joint letter to legislators before the bill passed, warning of the economic impact it could have on coastal communities.

No tangible benefit has been offered to help displaced interests mitigate for this loss of access, the letter said, referring to the fishing grounds that the bill will eventually close to all fishing. What has, to date, been called compromise is simply offers to reduce the magnitude of unmitigated permanent displacement.” 

The letter goes on to say that the legislation did not have the consensus that many claim.

There was not consensus on the north coast community teams, especially at Cape Falcon where ODFW crafted a different proposal after the community team process.

Ed Bowles, the administrator of the fish division at ODFW, said that while the final proposal was not the one passed by the Cape Falcon community team, the final proposal area selected was in fact less expansive than the one initially passed by the community team.

At Cape Falcon we had a vote of 9 to 7 for a larger reserve, he said. Even with the majority, we deferred to fishing interests.

Bowles said that the policy did represent a compromise, and points to the fact that all the coastal legislators sponsored the bill as evidence of this.

 It was a very Oregon process, he said.

Bowles said that ODFW will begin to develop the policies for the marine reserves over the next three months, and will heavily involve the communities near the marine reserves in both the process of developing and implementing the new reserves.

Bowles said that the two-year data collection will likely begin at Cascade Head and Cape Perpetua this summer. He said that they will not begin the two years of biological data collection at Cape Falcon until the spring or summer of 2013. The prohibitions on extraction in those areas will not begin until two years after the research begins.

Bowles said that the bill has stipulations in it that ODFW is to use local resources whenever practical in implementing the reserves. This means that ODFW will contract with local captains and divers to help with their research.

Its far better to use local resources, he said. Its a good partnership.

Bowles said that they have a good model for how to contract with people that was developed at the states pilot reserves at Redfish Rocks and Otter Rock.

Bowles said that the marine reserves issue has been talked about so much that it seems like they will have a bigger effect than they actually will.

There is an impression, he said, this is a big impact. There are still phenomenal opportunities out there for fishing. The foot print of this is less than five percent of the [Oregon] territorial sea.

Bowles said that even with the new reserves in place there will be many places that allow for both recreational and commercial fishing. He also said that while extraction of anything from the reserves will be prohibited, they will still be open for recreational use. He said that there will likely be many nuances that develop in the process of creating the rules for the reserves, and the meetings with the public at all stages of that process are intended to make sure that the public has input and understands the new rules.

The politicking is done, he said. Now it is time to move forward with implementation and let the science tell us if it is working.